What to look for in nature in Georgia this January

When do bald eaglets hatch in Georgia, and how does the DNR count nests?

• Eaglets in the nest

  Hatching January and February; young leave the nest late March to early May · Tall pines near the coast, big reservoirs and the lower rivers

  A nest with a chick in it looks different from one with eggs. The adult stands on the rim or perches close by instead of lying flat, and it flies in with food several times a day. Small gray heads do not show above the sticks for the first couple of weeks, so the first clue is usually a parent tearing food and bending low. The DNR says young fledge from late March to early May, and as late as June in the north Georgia mountains.

  Stay at least 330 feet back, the distance in federal guidelines, and watch from a car or a public road with binoculars.

• The midwinter helicopter survey

  Flights in January and February, then again in March and April · Five survey regions; the coast is flown every year

  The Wildlife Conservation Section splits Georgia into five parts and checks eagle territories by helicopter. Winter flights mark which nests are occupied; spring flights count the ones that fledged at least one young. The coast is covered every year, other regions at least every second year, and the whole state once every five years. In the 2026 season the team recorded 119 occupied territories in the areas it checked, 101 of them successful, with 170 eaglets raised, an 85 percent success rate. Georgia has held more than 200 nesting territories a year since 2015, against 55 a quarter century ago.

• Great horned owls sitting tight

  Eggs in the coldest weeks; owlets nearly full grown four weeks after hatching · Old hawk, crow and squirrel nests from downtown Atlanta to Sea Island

  The owls you heard courting in December are now on eggs. A DNR naturalist’s column notes that the female alone incubates, rarely leaving because the eggs can freeze, and that she begins sitting with the first egg, so one owlet is noticeably bigger than the other. Newly hatched owlets are about the size of baby chickens. Look for a pair of ear tufts over the rim of a red-tailed hawk nest, often 40 to 70 feet up, and for gray-brown pellets three to four inches long on the ground below.

Why is there a hummingbird at a Georgia feeder in January?

• Rufous hummingbirds

  November through February, some staying into March · Backyard feeders statewide, many reports from metro Atlanta

  The rufous hummingbird is by far the most frequent winter hummer in the state, with 75 to 100 reported in some years, according to the DNR’s Out My Backdoor columns. Adult males glow orange-copper; females and young birds are greener with rusty flanks and a rusty base to the tail. They nest as far north as Alaska, and they handle frosty Georgia nights well as long as food is available.

  The species is in trouble overall. A DNR column counts it among 70 North American birds that have lost at least half their numbers in the past 50 years, a decline of about 2 percent a year.

• Rarer winter visitors

  Any time in the cold months · Feeders and winter-blooming gardens

  Twelve hummingbird species have been recorded in Georgia. Most winter records came only after the DNR’s Hummingbird Helper program asked homeowners to keep one feeder up all winter and report what came to it; before it, no more than half a dozen rufous hummingbirds were reported a year, and by 1995 the count passed 200.

Will pine siskins and purple finches come to Georgia feeders this winter?

• Pine siskins

  A small to moderate flight is possible this winter · Thistle and sunflower feeders, sweetgum and pine seeds

  Small, streaky brown finches with a sharp, slender bill and yellow edging that shows in the wings and tail. The forecast expects most to stay in the Northeast, but adds that a small to moderate flight could still reach the southeastern states. If siskins come, they often arrive in noisy flocks that empty a feeder in a morning.

• Purple finches and red-breasted nuthatches

  Few expected this year · Feeders near woods, especially in north Georgia

  Last winter’s strong push of red-breasted nuthatches into the Southeast is not expected to repeat, and any purple finch movement will likely be small and late. Male purple finches look dipped in raspberry juice; the common house finch is streakier, with red mostly on the head and breast.

• The everyday winter crowd

  All month · Backyards statewide

  Even in a quiet finch year, January feeders draw winter-only birds that bred far to the north: white-throated sparrows scratching under shrubs, dark-eyed juncos in the mountains and Piedmont, and yellow-rumped warblers at suet. Watch for a ruby-crowned kinglet flicking its wings in the shrubs.

Where can you see wintering ducks in Georgia in January?

• Altamaha Waterfowl Management Area

  Fall and winter for ducks; eagles winter into spring · Impoundments and viewing towers beside U.S. 17 near Darien

  About 3,150 acres of managed impoundments on a former rice plantation, with viewing towers on both sides of the highway. The DNR’s birding trail guide names American black duck, pintail, green-winged teal and shoveler among the cold-season ducks, Wilson’s snipe probing the exposed mud, and bald eagles in winter and spring. A hunting or fishing license or a Georgia lands pass is needed to visit.

• Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge

  Wintering waterfowl and sparrows · Four-mile Wildlife Drive near Townsend, McIntosh County

  More than 2,700 acres of salt marsh, freshwater ponds, woods and fields where 342 bird species have been recorded. In winter the freshwater ponds collect ducks, and the edges of the fields hold sparrows. Woody Pond, quiet now, fills with nesting wood storks and egrets from late February.

Are right whale mothers and calves still off Georgia in January?

• Mother and calf pairs

  All month; some new pairs are first seen in January · Roughly 7 to 40 miles out in the 2025 sightings, off Wassaw, Ossabaw, Blackbeard, St. Simons and Cumberland

  Survey crews identified 23 calves in the 2026 season. Five of the mothers were first photographed with their calves off Georgia between December 17 and December 27, 2025, from about 7 miles off Blackbeard Island to 38 miles off Ossabaw. Some pairs turn up later: in January 2021 a mother called Magic was seen with a calf off Little Cumberland Island on January 4, and another female, No. 3720, off Wassaw Island.

  A young calf stays pressed against its mother’s side, so a long dark back with a smaller hump beside it is the shape to watch for.

Which salamanders and frogs breed in Georgia’s January rains?

• Spotted salamanders

  Winter and early spring rains · Piedmont and mountains; scarce in the Coastal Plain and absent from the southeast

  A black salamander six to nine inches long with two rows of yellow or orange spots, rarely seen except on the nights it walks from its burrow to a pool. The University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory notes that females lay clumps of up to 200 eggs, often tinted green by algae that live inside the jelly, and that adults can live for two decades.

• Ornate chorus frogs

  November through March, before the peepers · Grassy, fishless ponds, Carolina bays and ditches of the Coastal Plain

  A small frog that comes in gray, green or reddish brown, with a black stripe through the eye and yellow in the groin. The call is a sharp, metallic “tink” repeated fast, a little like a rapidly struck bell. It is secretive and rarely found away from its winter breeding pools.

• Wood frogs

  Late winter, often in the first warm rains · Vernal pools in the north Georgia mountains only

  Tan frogs with a dark robber’s mask, at the very southern edge of a range that reaches above the Arctic Circle. Males gather for a few nights and give a short, duck-like quack; egg masses appear soon after.

• Marbled salamander larvae

  Hatched in fall pools; growing all winter · Shallow woodland pools across most of the state except the southeast

  Marbled salamanders breed in autumn, and their larvae spend the winter in the pools that rain refilled. A slow look into clear shallow water with a flashlight may show small gilled larvae on the leaves.

What is green or blooming on the Georgia forest floor in January?

• Cranefly orchid

  Leaf visible from fall until it withers in summer · Hardwood and pine woods in every Georgia county

  A single pleated leaf lying flat on the ground, dull green with purple blotches on top and purple underneath. The GNPS says a winter walk after leaf fall is the best time to find this orchid, which flowers in late summer, after the leaf has gone. Turn one gently and the purple underside gives it away.

• Partridgeberry

  Red berries persist through winter · Shady woods statewide, often under fallen leaves

  A creeping evergreen with paired, round leaves marked by a pale midvein and single scarlet berries, each with two small dimples where the twin flowers fused. The berries can hang on until the plant blooms again in summer.

• Round-lobe hepatica

  Burgundy winter leaves; flowers late winter to early spring · Rich, rocky wooded slopes and ravines, mostly the Piedmont and mountains

  Three-lobed evergreen leaves that turn burgundy brown in winter, and one of the very first wildflowers, with blue, lavender or white stars on hairy stems. Look on north-facing ravine banks in late January for fuzzy buds.

• Red maple in flower

  Late winter into early spring · Swamps, floodplains, lake edges and yards

  Red maple flowers in small dense red clusters before the leaves, and the GNPS calls them somewhat showy in late winter. From a distance a tree in bloom gives a reddish haze to a bare wetland edge, and the paired winged seeds follow within weeks.

Is January Georgia’s coldest month, and could El Niño make it wetter?

How much daylight does Georgia gain in January?

What can you see in Georgia’s night sky in January 2027?

• The Quadrantids

  Peak predicted Sunday night, January 3, into the early hours of Monday, January 4 · Look northeast; the radiant climbs through the night

  Active from late December to January 12, but the peak lasts only about six hours. Two predictions differ: about 10:30 p.m. Sunday from the American Meteor Society, and 12:47 a.m. Monday from EarthSky. Either way the best window in Georgia is the dark hours before dawn on the 4th, when the radiant is high. On the morning of the 4th the waning crescent, under a fifth lit, stays below Atlanta’s horizon until 5:16 a.m. From a rural field you might count several dozen in an hour; suburbs show a fraction.

• Venus at greatest elongation

  Sunday, January 3, and all month · Southeast before sunrise

  On January 3 Venus reaches its widest angle from the Sun, 47 degrees, blazing at about magnitude −4.3 above the dawn horizon; a backyard telescope shows a half-lit disk.

• Earth closest to the Sun

  Saturday, January 2, 9:33 p.m. · Everywhere

  At perihelion the planet is roughly 91.4 million miles from the Sun, about three million miles nearer than in early July. Georgia’s cold comes from low sun angles and short days caused by the axial tilt.

• The Wolf Moon, closest full moon of 2027

  Full at 7:17 a.m., Friday, January 22 · East at dusk on the 21st; west at dawn on the 22nd

  The Moon is full about 14 hours after perigee, at 222,229 miles, the nearest the Moon comes at full phase all year. In Atlanta it rises at 5:08 p.m. on Thursday the 21st and is still above the western horizon at the full instant, setting at 7:51 a.m.; on the evening of the 22nd it rises at 6:25 p.m., still looking round.

• Moon, Jupiter and Regulus

  Evening of Saturday, January 23 · East after moonrise

  A day past full, the Moon rises in Atlanta at 7:40 p.m. and keeps company with Jupiter, the brightest point beside it, while Regulus in Leo trails not far off as the night goes on. Jupiter is heading for opposition on February 10.

• Mercury and Saturn

  Mercury from late January; Saturn all month · Low west-southwest after sunset; Saturn in the southwest

  During January’s final week, Mercury appears as a small bright point low in the west-southwest in bright twilight, which is building toward a good evening appearance in early February. Saturn, pale and steady, hangs in the southwestern sky after dusk and sinks a little lower every week.

What can Georgia families do outside in January 2027?

Safety notes for January in Georgia