CraneFest brought a weekend of sandhill cranes to Big Marsh Lake near Bellevue

BELLEVUE, Mich. — Late in the day all through October, sandhill cranes come off the farm fields of eastern Calhoun County, where they spend the day feeding, and settle into Big Marsh Lake for the night. On the weekend of Oct. 10-11, the Kiwanis Club of Battle Creek held its 31st CraneFest so people could watch them come in.

The festival ran from noon until dusk Saturday, Oct. 10, and Sunday, Oct. 11, at the Kiwanis Youth Conservation Area, 22300 15 Mile Road, according to the club’s listing on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds site. The Detroit Free Press listed closing time as 6 p.m. Parking cost $10 per vehicle and covered admission on both days, the Free Press reported. There were restrooms and a pavilion on site.

Arriving early was worth it. The club set up an Artist Village where Michigan nature artists sold their work, alongside vendors and nonprofit and outdoor groups. A local naturalist was scheduled to lead guided walks on the trails from about 1 to 4:30 p.m. Kids had their own activity tent, and the grounds offered viewing spots for the birds, animal encounters and a food truck.

The main event came near sundown, when the cranes flew in. Big Marsh Lake, a restored wetland, belongs to Michigan Audubon’s Bernard W. Baker Sanctuary, which the Free Press called the first sanctuary in the country set aside to protect sandhill cranes. The sanctuary covers about 980 acres and has three walking trails. Audubon volunteers counted 889 cranes roosting there on Oct. 25 last year, the paper reported.

Sandhill cranes are Michigan’s largest birds, standing 3 to 4 feet tall with wingspans of 6 to 7 feet, according to Michigan Audubon figures cited by the Free Press. Look for the red patch on the crown, and listen for a rolling, trumpet-like call. By late fall the birds head for the southern states and northern Mexico.

For later October visits: The cranes keep roosting at the marsh through the month, so binoculars, a camera, lawn chairs and a blanket are still worth packing, since evenings there turn cool. The club’s directions for the festival grounds: from Interstate 94, take I-69 north on the east side of Battle Creek to Exit 42, go west roughly half a mile to the traffic light at Cornwell’s Turkeyville and turn right onto 15 1/2 Mile Road, which merges into 15 Mile Road. The gate is on the right.

Updated Oct. 12, 2026: CraneFest took place Oct. 10-11. This guide was published before them, and its schedule language has been changed to the past tense. The cranes’ October roosting at Big Marsh Lake continues.

Updated Oct. 13, 2026: The headline and summary were changed to the past tense for events that have already taken place.

Sources:
Detroit Free Press, “Sandhill cranes are starting to gather. When they’ll head south,” Sept. 25, 2026, https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2026/09/25/sandhill-cranes-michigan-battle-creek-kiwanis-bellevue-big-marsh-lake/91924400007/
Kiwanis Club of Battle Creek, CraneFest event listing on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/event/kiwanis-club-cranefest/
Photo: Diane Constable, “Grus canadensis -Michigan, USA -migrating-8,” Nov. 27, 2010, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), cropped and color-corrected, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grus_canadensis_-Michigan,_USA_-migrating-8.jpg

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Tags: Battle Creek · Michigan Travel · Festivals · Things To Do · Roads and Transportation · Parks and Recreation