What to look for in nature in Idaho this January

Where can you see bald eagles in Idaho in January?

• Cottonwoods on the southern rivers

  All month; most birds of the winter in January and February · The Snake River at Box Canyon and the Vader Grade near Hagerman; Barber Dam on the Boise River in southeast Boise; the South Fork of the Snake below Palisades Dam

  Fish and Game names stretches of the Snake, Salmon and Boise rivers among Idaho’s main eagle wintering areas. Visit Idaho points watchers to Box Canyon in Thousand Springs State Park, to the Vader Grade south of Hagerman for birds coming in at sunset, and to Barber Dam inside Boise itself. On the South Fork, the 60 miles of river from Palisades Dam to the Henrys Fork holds the state’s largest nesting population of bald eagles. At night, eagles crowd into communal roosts in mature trees with stout limbs and dense crowns, so a grove that looks empty at noon can hold a dozen birds at first light.

• The midwinter count

  January · Rivers and reservoirs statewide, including the Salmon, Lemhi and Pahsimeroi corridors around Salmon and Challis

  Every January, volunteers and agency biologists drive set routes around Idaho for the statewide midwinter eagle survey. An Associated Press report in January 1992 put the statewide midwinter count at 830 bald eagles the year before, up from 404 in 1979, with 127 counted in eastern Idaho alone. Golden eagles, which hunt the open range and rimrock, turn up on the same counts and often share a carcass with bald eagles.

• Below the dams

  Cold spells, when other water freezes · The North Fork of the Clearwater below Dworshak Dam at Ahsahka, and the Clearwater down to Lewiston

  Dams can be eagle magnets. In a 1991 count, Clearwater biologists found eagles waiting in the ponderosa pines and cottonwoods at the base of Dworshak Dam, where kokanee that had passed through the turbines came out stunned or injured and easy to catch. About 20 eagles wintered between Orofino and Lewiston in those years.

• Coeur d’Alene’s eagles move on

  The Wolf Lodge Bay gathering usually thins out by January · Lake Coeur d’Alene and Lake Pend Oreille

  The BLM says migrating eagles use the Lake Coeur d’Alene area from November through February, but the big Wolf Lodge Bay crowds depend on spawned-out kokanee, and those run out. Last winter the weekly tally had fallen to 20 birds by December 19. A few birds stay on the northern lakes all winter, but many drift south.

Where can you see trumpeter swans in Idaho in winter?

• The Henrys Fork at Harriman

  All month · Harriman State Park, Island Park, about 28 miles south of West Yellowstone

  Harriman sits inside an 11,700-acre wildlife refuge, and in winter its roads become more than 33 miles of groomed trails for classic and skate skiing, snowshoeing and fat biking. The park’s trail guide singles out the River Trail, an easy 1.3-mile beginner trail along the bank, for its views of trumpeter swans and other waterfowl, and says to watch for river otters near the Thurmon Creek bridge. Fish and Game adds common goldeneyes, pintails, wigeons and Canada geese to the winter list, with the odd Eurasian wigeon, plus bald eagles and moose. A winter access pass costs $6 per person per day on top of the $7 vehicle fee. Volunteers from the Idaho Falls Nordic Ski Patrol, in red coats, help on weekends from January through March.

• Counting the Rocky Mountain swans

  Formerly late January or early February · The Henrys Fork, South Fork, Teton and main Snake rivers

  For decades the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service flew a midwinter survey of the Rocky Mountain population of trumpeters. The Pacific Flyway Council’s management plan says the count was done in late January or early February until 2015, and that the last one found 6,933 birds, 5,587 white birds and 1,346 gray cygnets. If you count a group yourself, list the gray young separately, as the surveyors did.

• Swans in the stubble

  Mild spells · Farm fields near the Henrys Fork and South Fork

  The same plan notes that in recent mild winters, large numbers of trumpeters wintering in Idaho have taken to feeding in fields rather than on the rivers. If the strong El Niño gives eastern Idaho a softer January, look for big white birds on snowless fields near the rivers of the Upper Snake, and report them to eBird with the date and place.

When do owls nest and call in Idaho in winter?

• Great horned owls pick a nest

  Courtship November to January; eggs soon after · River cottonwoods, farm shelterbelts, canyon walls and city parks statewide

  Fish and Game’s owl booklet places great horned owl courtship from November into January. The female then claims an old hawk or magpie nest, or a hollow in a tree, and lays two to four eggs that hatch after 33 to 35 days. Look for the birds by day high in a riverside cottonwood, and check the ground below likely roost trees for gray pellets up to 4 inches long, packed with fur and bone. An adult sitting low and flat in a big stick nest in late January may already be on eggs; keep well back.

• Long-eared owls in their winter roosts

  Roosting all winter; singing from January or February · Dense willow thickets along streams in otherwise open country

  This slim owl with tall ear tufts spends the day hidden low in thick cover, and in winter several often share the same thicket. Its song, a slow series of low hoots a few seconds apart, can begin in January. A study in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area found that rodents made up 97 percent of its diet there. If you find a roost, watch from outside the thicket and leave quietly; flushed owls lose energy and sometimes the roost.

• Boreal owls begin to sing

  Males from late January; females from early February · Old spruce and fir forests in the high mountains, including the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness

  Few people ever hear this small mountain owl, but January is when the chance begins. Fish and Game says Idaho males start singing in late January and females in early February: a quick run of about ten hoots that rolls across snowy valleys, sometimes for 20 minutes to an hour. The calling picks up through March, ahead of nesting in old woodpecker holes.

• Snowy and northern hawk owls

  Some winters only · Open farmland and prairie, mostly in north Idaho

  Snowy owls come south from the Arctic only now and then, and the state’s owl booklet says most Idaho sightings have been in the north. The northern hawk owl, which hunts by day from treetops, is another irregular visitor to north Idaho in years when food runs short in Canada, and it has nested a few times in Boundary County. Either one is worth a report to eBird.

Which Arctic birds spend the winter on Idaho’s open plains?

• Rough-legged hawks

  All winter · The Snake River Plain, for example the roads toward Swan Falls and Grandview

  Rough-legs nest on the Arctic tundra and the stunted forest at its edge and come south every winter. A Boise birding columnist writes that on the Snake River Plain you will almost certainly see one or more, yet they seldom come into the Boise foothills, preferring wide sagebrush country. Their plumage varies a great deal, as does that of the resident red-tailed hawks they share the plain with, so take a good look before you decide.

• Snow buntings

  Most winters, in flocks · The Camas Prairie around Fairfield, where Highway 20 comes out onto the flats; occasionally Round Valley near Smiths Ferry

  These white-winged Arctic songbirds winter across the northern half of the Lower 48, and the same columnist calls the Fairfield area the most reliable place to see them in southern Idaho, with flocks of a few birds to a hundred or more in most winters.

• Rosy-finches

  Mostly in heavy snow · Ski areas, foothill feeders and snow-free fields; a Boise birding columnist reported a flock of more than 600 gray-crowned rosy-finches at Bogus Basin in early November 2023

  Gray-crowned and black rosy-finches nest among alpine cliffs and snowfields, and both flock together in winter, moving to wherever the ground is bare. Big snowstorms push them down to lower elevations, where they sometimes visit feeders on the edge of town. The Cornell Lab notes that they feed mostly on the ground, picking up seed spilled under a feeder.

How do Idaho’s elk, deer and moose get through January?

• Tex Creek Wildlife Management Area

  Roads closed December 1 to April 15 · About 15 miles east of Idaho Falls

  Once the snow starts, as many as 4,000 elk and 3,000 mule deer can move onto Tex Creek’s 35,218 acres, some of them from up to 70 miles away, and moose are common. The area was set aside as winter range after Ririe Reservoir and Teton Dam flooded older habitat in the 1970s, and Bonneville County closes about 18 miles of road to motor vehicles each winter so the animals can rest. Much of the range is still recovering from the 2016 Henry’s Creek fire, which burned almost two-thirds of it.

• When winter turns severe

  Deep snow and long cold spells, usually late in the winter · Portneuf, Georgetown, Montpelier, Tex Creek and Market Lake WMAs in southeast and eastern Idaho

  In hard winters, Fish and Game closes some wildlife management areas to all entry. In one recent severe winter it shut five in the southeast and Upper Snake regions beginning February 3. A regional habitat manager explained that deer, elk and moose forced to wade through deep snow in the cold burn through their fat quickly. The department also reminds dog owners that letting a dog chase or harass big game is illegal, and that a loose dog of any size looks like a predator to a deer.

• Please do not feed them

  All winter · Towns from Hayden to McCall to Ketchum

  Fish and Game always advises against feeding deer and elk, and in many Idaho towns it is against the law. A winter stomach is tuned to dry, coarse forage, so rich feed can cause bloat and death; crowds at a feeding spot spread disease and lure mountain lions and coyotes into neighborhoods. Feeding also pulls animals toward deadly landscape plants. In January 2022, five elk, two of them calves, died after eating toxic yew in Wood River Valley neighborhoods, and the same shrub killed at least 20 elk there in 2015–16. McCall adopted a no-feeding ordinance in September 2023 to deal with its town deer.

What are Idaho’s bears and other mammals doing in midwinter?

• Black bear cubs are born

  Around the end of January or early February · Dens under upturned root wads and fallen trees in forests across Idaho

  Black bears seldom dig a den from scratch. Fish and Game’s Wildlife Express says they often use the hole left when a big tree blows over and its roots pull out of the ground, lined with a little grass. The cubs, usually two, arrive at the end of January or the first part of February while the mother is still in the den. They weigh about half a pound, with closed eyes and almost no fur, and they nurse through the rest of the winter. By the time the family leaves the den in April or May, each cub weighs 4 to 10 pounds.

• Porcupines eating bark

  All winter · Conifer and mixed forests, river bottoms and ranch buildings

  Porcupines stay active all winter and live largely on the inner bark of trees. Fish and Game notes that they are solitary most of the year but will share a den in a rock pile, hollow tree or old building during bad weather, a gathering it calls a prickle. They are excellent climbers, so scan the crowns of pines and cottonwoods, and keep dogs well away from any you find.

• Martens hunting voles

  All winter, day and night · Mature conifer forests with plenty of fallen logs

  The American marten is a slim, house-cat-sized member of the weasel family that lives mostly on voles. Fish and Game describes it running along the forest floor, poking its head into holes and under logs and rocks, or ambushing prey from a perch in a tree. In snow country, those holes lead down to the spaces where voles live under the snowpack all winter. On skis or snowshoes, look for paired prints that end at a log or a hole in the snow and pick up again a few yards on.

When is the ice thick enough to fish in Idaho in January?

• Lake Cascade perch

  Once the ice is safe; check current reports · Lake Cascade, Valley County; plowed parking and a launch off Lake Cascade Parkway just west of town

  At 47 square miles, Lake Cascade has room for everyone, and it has a national reputation for trophy yellow perch, including a number of record fish. The department warns that fish can be scattered on such a big lake, and suggests looking for clusters of anglers on weekends as a clue. Horsethief Reservoir, east of Cascade off Warm Lake Road, is the area’s stocked-trout alternative, with a plowed road. A youth ice fishing day is held there in some winters; check with Idaho Youth Outdoors.

• Southern reservoirs that wait for January

  Usually mid-January onward · Magic Reservoir north of Shoshone; Oakley Reservoir; C.J. Strike Reservoir south of Mountain Home

  Fish and Game says ice fishing at Magic Reservoir typically picks up in January, when thicker ice is more likely, with rainbow and brown trout and plenty of perch. Oakley, one of the few places to catch walleye through the ice, is best in mid-January. C.J. Strike is the wild card: in many years the middle stays open, and anglers fish only coves near shore after a long cold spell.

• Small lakes in the north

  Often the first to lock up · Avondale, Cocolalla, Dawson and the Twin Lakes in the Panhandle; Winchester Lake near Lewiston

  Small, high or northern lakes freeze earliest. Winchester State Park rents heated yurts in winter beside a lake that Fish and Game stocks with rainbow trout for ice anglers, which makes an easy family overnight.

How much daylight does Idaho gain in January?

How cold and snowy is January in Idaho, and what will El Niño do?

What can you see in Idaho’s night sky in January?

• The Quadrantid meteors

  Night of Sunday, January 3, into Monday, January 4 · Anywhere dark; look north and northeast

  This shower’s peak lasts only a few hours, and in 2027 moonlight is hardly a factor, since only a slim crescent climbs above the Idaho ridges, and not until a few hours before sunrise. Forecasters differ on the peak time: the American Meteor Society’s estimate works out to about 8:30 p.m. MST (7:30 p.m. PST) on the 3rd, and another prediction puts it near 10:47 p.m. MST (9:47 p.m. PST). Because the radiant starts out low in the northeast and gains height as the night goes on, Idaho watchers should start by mid-evening and stay out as long as they can stand the cold. From a dark site, expect dozens of meteors an hour at best.

• The Wolf Moon, a supermoon

  Night of Thursday, January 21, and the evening of Friday, January 22 · Rising in the east-northeast at dusk

  The moon is exactly full at 5:17 a.m. MST (4:17 a.m. PST) on January 22, less than a day after its closest approach of the month. At that moment it will be roughly 222,229 miles from Earth, nearer than at any other full moon this year. The best show is the evening of the 21st, when it rises around sunset and shines all night on the snow; it still looks full when it rises on the 22nd. The next evening, Saturday the 23rd, the moon sits close to bright Jupiter.

• Venus at dawn, Jupiter after dark

  All month · Venus in the southeast before sunrise; Jupiter in the east in the evening; Saturn low in the southwest

  Venus hits its greatest western elongation on January 3 and blazes in the southeast over the Idaho dawn for all of January. Jupiter rises earlier each evening ahead of its opposition on February 10, and Saturn sinks lower in the southwest after dark. Toward month’s end, sharp eyes may catch Mercury in the evening twilight just above the west-southwest horizon; it is better placed in early February.

• Northern lights

  Any clear, dark night after a strong solar storm · Look north from dark spots in the Panhandle, Island Park and the high valleys

  Sunspot counts have dropped from their 2024 high point, yet Idaho skies could still light up red and green if a powerful storm arrives from the sun this winter. Moonless evenings, the best for faint glows, fall in the stretch around the January 7 new moon. Check the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center’s aurora forecast before heading out.

What can Idaho families do outside in January?

Safety notes for January in Idaho