Drive 2.5 miles west on Woodbridge Road from Thornton Road and you'll reach a pullout on the left side of the road. That's the South Unit of the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve, which the sign out front calls the Phil and Marilyn Isenberg Sandhill Crane Reserve. A short concrete ramp leads to the top of a viewing mound. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, sunset is prime time for the fall and winter crane fly-in. You can come any evening, and you don't need a reservation.
This weekend the 28th Lodi Sandhill Crane Festival opens with Friday evening events on November 6 and runs through Sunday, November 8. Tour tickets went on sale September 8, and by late October several weekend tours were marked sold out, including a Cosumnes tour and several of the Friday fly-in tours. If you missed those, you can still see the cranes. Festival tickets mostly pay for access to places that are closed to the public the rest of the time. The birds themselves are free to watch.
What a festival ticket buys
The Lodi Sandhill Crane Association runs the festival together with the City of Lodi. Admission is free, and tour prices vary. Most ticketed tours go to ground you can't walk onto by yourself. Here's what each site looks like during festival week:
| Place | Open without a tour? | Festival tour price |
|---|---|---|
| Hutchins Street Square, 125 S. Hutchins St. | Yes, free admission | Not applicable |
| Woodbridge South Unit | Yes, any evening, with a Lands Pass | $23 to $30 for the fly-in with a CDFW docent talk |
| Woodbridge North Unit and viewing shelter | No, docent-led tours only | $33 to $40 |
| Staten Island farmland | No, private farmland | $20 to $25 by caravan, $35 to $40 by small bus |
| Cosumnes River Preserve trails and boardwalk | Yes, day use | $20 for the new accessible boardwalk outing |
The festival's "Farms, Floodplains, and Flyways" tours enter parts of Staten Island that aren't usually open to the public. The North Unit shelter works the same way. CDFW says it can only be visited on a docent-led tour, and it asks people not to enter the reserve or the properties along Woodbridge Road on their own. The Square and the South Unit have no gate at all, and that's where this weekend's free plan comes from.
Saturday at the Square costs nothing
The festival's main program runs Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. These Saturday, November 7 sessions are listed as part of the program at Hutchins Street Square:
- 10:00 a.m. "Meet the Cranes: An Introduction to Lodi's Seasonal Visitors," a speaker presentation. A free workshop on photographing sandhill cranes starts at the same hour and covers bird behavior, ethics and locations.
- 10:00 a.m. Origami crane folding with volunteers. The festival lists it as free and open to everyone. The San Joaquin Audubon Society also opens its hands-on "Crane-ium" collection at 10.
- 10:30 a.m. and 1:10 p.m. "The Secret Lives of Raptors," where Native Bird Connections brings hawks and owls for close-up viewing.
- 11:30 a.m. Taiko drumming by Denis and James Kurata. The festival calls their performance a highlight for 25 years.
- Noon. The keynote, "Into Whooperland," in which photographer Michael Forsberg follows whooping cranes from their wintering grounds on the Texas Gulf Coast. Artists from the Lodi Community Art Center also start a make-and-take mini painting session for all ages at noon.
- 1:30 p.m. "A Farmer's Feathered Friend," a talk on barn owl research in Lodi-area vineyards, from monitoring nest boxes to tracking where the owls hunt.
The art show, the vendor marketplace and the conservation exhibits are open all day. The program ends at 4 p.m., which leaves time to drive out for the fly-in. The festival's own South Unit tour also starts at 4:15.
Then drive west for the fly-in
Before you go, get the one thing the South Unit requires. Everyone 16 and older needs a CDFW Lands Pass or a current fishing or hunting license. That applies to tour guests and to people visiting on their own. A one-day Lands Pass costs $5.66 on the CDFW license sales site. You can check out as a guest, and you don't need to create a customer profile.
CDFW's directions from Lodi:
- Take Interstate 5 north and exit at Turner Road.
- Turn left, which is north, onto the frontage road. That's Thornton Road.
- Go 1 mile to Woodbridge Road and look for the Isenberg reserve sign.
- Turn left, which is west, and drive 2.5 miles to the pullout on the left.
Woodbridge Road comes with rules that tend to surprise first-time visitors. It's a working farm road, and in the fall, large grain trucks move quickly along it. CDFW asks anyone driving slowly to look at birds in the fields to stay in their car and turn on their emergency flashers. The road dead-ends within 6 miles. Pets can come, but they have to stay inside the vehicle. Both units have accessible portable toilets. CDFW also points to Flag City, just south at the junction of Highways 5 and 12, as a stop on the way in or out. Bring bug repellent, because mosquitoes use the wetlands along the road.
The timing of your exit matters. CDFW docents stay until about half an hour after sunset and then lead a caravan back to Woodbridge Road, because headlights can disturb cranes as they land. If you're there on your own, waiting until the fly-in is over before you start your car follows the same courtesy.
Where a docent still earns the ticket
The South Unit gives you the birds. A guided tour adds the North Unit, where a viewing shelter keeps you hidden from the incoming cranes. CDFW tours meet at the South Unit 90 minutes before sunset. Docents give a presentation there, sometimes lead a car caravan along Woodbridge Road to the grain fields and marshes, and finish at the North Unit shelter for the fly-in. Tours run rain or shine, and CDFW says the cranes act especially animated in storms. The tours are wheelchair accessible, and there's disabled parking next to the North Unit shelter.
During festival weekend, the docent tours are booked only through the festival. After that, CDFW's regular schedule picks up again with Saturday and Sunday tours on November 14, 15, 21 and 22. You register on Eventbrite through links on the CDFW crane tour page, and questions go to [email protected]. Group sizes are limited, so you have to register in advance. Tours run the first three weekends of each month from October through February.
Festival weekend draws the crowd, but it isn't the only chance to go. The tours run five months, and the cranes stay even longer.
The cranes stay through March
Visit Lodi says sandhill cranes usually reach the Lodi area in October, stay through March, and peak in November and December. So the sold-out tours this weekend fall at the start of the busiest stretch, and the free South Unit stays open through all of it.
You can also see cranes in a few other places:
- Cosumnes River Preserve, 13501 Franklin Blvd., Galt. Visit Lodi lists the 1-mile Lost Slough Wetlands Trail and a self-guided driving tour. The preserve's site lists the boardwalk and lower lot as open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the upper lot until 6:30 p.m. It's day use only, and pets aren't allowed except service animals.
- Staten Island, off Walnut Grove Road. The Nature Conservancy manages it as private conservation land. Visit Lodi lists Staten Island Road off Walnut Grove Road as the location. The farmland itself is open only on guided trips like the festival's caravans.
For CDFW tours later in the season, the timing rule is the one to remember. Reservations open at noon on the first working day of each month, for the following month's tours. By that rule, January tours open on Tuesday, December 1. Check the CDFW page for the posted dates, because tour sizes are limited.
If the cranes have you thinking about which parts of Lodi put Woodbridge Road a short evening drive away, I'm happy to walk through the map with you. Deborah Maisterrena helps buyers and sellers across Lodi and East County. Let's Connect.
