Alturas Balloon Festival from A News Cafe on Vimeo.
The northeast corner of California has many surprises for those who venture out beyond Burney, way beyond, to the high plateau country of Modoc County, where September brings a celebration of the abundance of wildlife and open country in an extraordinary way.
The weekend of Sept. 19 was a colorful showcase of hot air balloons rising with the sun over Alturas, where a number of nature-related events made up the annual Wings of the Warners Migratory Bird Festival.
Modoc’s regal sandhill cranes were the highlight for birders who came out for the guided birding walk at the Modoc National Wildlife Refuge Sunday, Sept. 20. Click here for a spectacular view of MNWR wildlife. Or watch MNWR on KIXE’s “Nature Caught in the Act” special, coming up Oct. 18 at 8 p.m. The cranes are already staging, however, circling over the refuge and beyond, beckoning their flock to move down into the Sacramento Valley for the winter. Modoc has already had several frosts, which seems to signal to the cranes that it’s time to move on.
Alturas is a balloonist’s dream, with lots of open country and no freeways to worry. They love to stop here between the balloon show in Reno and others further north in Oregon. Local businesses sponsor eight to 12 balloonists, and the Alturas Chamber of Commerce arranges rides for those wishing to have one of the more awesome experiences of a lifetime.
With a whoosh of propane, the balloons launch into a dreamy, quiet drift over the little town of Alturas and float where the currents take them, southwest over the refuge or northeast along the snaking Pit River toward the misty blue Warner Mountains, just coming to life with the sunrise.
The Wings of the Warners Migratory Bird Festival highlights all the wildlife-related services in Modoc County and features some local artists as well. Children’s activities draw the young into an appreciation of the abundance of nature surrounding them, while guest speakers and refuge staff give their audiences a glimpse of what they do.
This year for the first time, Tina and Bill Hodge of Eagle Peak Wildlife Care brought one of their rescued raptors trained well enough now to be an educational resource. The Hodges explained that while most of their rescued wildlife heal well enough to be released, some have injuries too severe to ever be able to feed themselves and avoid predators – so those are the ones trained to help educate the public about their place in nature and how many hazards they encounter when their habitat crosses development.
For more information about the Hodges’ rescue efforts, call The River Center at 530-233-5085 or the refuge at 530-233-3572.
Modoc County is usually a quiet, understated kind of place, but when the balloons arrive and the cranes start to call and stage, the people here pause to reflect that maybe being 100 miles from the nearest freeway does have its advantages, after all.
Slideshow created by Bruce Greenberg
