ALEXANDER MEDEL
The Cranes of Colusa County
Shortly after returning to the San Francisco Bay Area for winter break, I received a curious invitation from an old friend of mine at Stanford. An ornithologist, he was organizing a birding trip to the Sacramento Valley to show our high school biology teacher and her fiancé the birds of the Pacific Flyway, most notably its geese, herons and cranes. With wanderlust — that burgeoning restlessness born out of youth, curiosity and an addiction for adventure — and an excuse to explore more of my home state, I decided to join. Accompanied by a mutual friend from Princeton, the three of us set off. Our primary objective was to hit a series of birding spots on the road to Colusa, a town in the Sacramento Valley roughly 120 miles north of San Francisco, where we were going to meet the rest of our party.
January 19, 2024
