What to look for in nature in Kentucky this December

Can you see the moonbow at Cumberland Falls in December?

Where can you see sandhill cranes in Kentucky in December?

• Barren River Lake at roosting time

  Late afternoon to dusk, all month; numbers usually climb into January · Barren River Lake WMA and the state resort park, south of Glasgow (Central time)

  Each fall the lake is drawn down to its winter pool, and the mud and shallows of the creek arms, especially Skaggs, Beaver and Peters creeks, become safe roosts. The cranes feed by day in harvested corn and soybean fields and fly in around sunset; surveyors have seen birds still landing a quarter hour after the sun went down. Watch from public roads and the park, and listen for their far-carrying bugle. By mid-January 2025 the count topped 12,000, and the park’s guided crane weekend is at the end of January.

• Cecilia, in Hardin County

  December into February, in wet years · Farm ponds and fields around Cecilia, west of Elizabethtown

  The second site is farmland, and it depends on rain. In a dry December the department has found the roost reduced to a mudflat with a few dozen cranes or none; on December 15, 2025, it counted 480. All of it is private land, so watch from the road shoulder. In 2021 a whooping crane, among the scarcest birds on the continent, fed with the sandhills here, so look twice at any tall white bird.

• Crane season

  December 7, 2026, to January 31, 2027 · Statewide

  The hunting season runs with the second segment of duck season, and the department reminds hunters that whooping cranes sometimes travel with sandhills.

When is the Christmas Bird Count in Kentucky, and can anyone join?

• What the counts find

  Count days, December 14 to January 5 · 42 count circles statewide

  Audubon’s summary of the 2024–25 count reported 139 species and 339,198 birds in Kentucky, found by 528 participants. Lexington set its own record with 96 species. Starlings, grackles and red-winged blackbirds topped the totals, while the highlights included golden eagles, 11 Ross’s geese and 21 short-eared owls on eight counts.

• How to join

  Contact a compiler a few weeks ahead · The Kentucky Ornithological Society’s CBC page

  Choose the nearest circle, write to its compiler through the society’s page, and say whether you would rather walk, drive a route or watch a feeder. Bring binoculars, warm layers and a thermos; the team leader keeps the official tally, and there is no fee.

Where can you see bald eagles in Kentucky in December?

• The western lakes

  December through March; mornings are best · Kentucky Lake, Lake Barkley and the tailwaters below their dams (Central time)

  Scan dead snags along the shore for a white head, and check the edges of rafts of ducks and coots, where an eagle may wait for a weak bird. Young eagles stay mottled brown for several years. An eagle soars on flat wings; a turkey vulture holds its wings in a shallow V and rocks.

• Eagles elsewhere

  All winter · The Ohio River and big reservoirs such as Barren River, Green River and Cave Run lakes

  The crane surveyors at Barren River Lake have logged adult and young eagles there in recent Decembers. Resident pairs are adding sticks to their nests now, and eggs follow from January to March. If you find a nest, the department recommends staying about 330 feet away on foot.

• Guided eagle tours

  January and February · State resort parks on the western lakes

  Kentucky State Parks has a long tradition of guided winter eagle tours on the western lakes, but they run in January and February, not December. Watch the parks’ events calendar for 2027 dates.

Which owls can you hear in Kentucky in December?

• Great horned owls courting

  All month, especially early evening and before dawn · Woodlots, farm edges, parks and suburbs statewide

  Great horned owls are among the earliest nesters in Kentucky. Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky, in Louisville, says they breed here in December and have eggs by January, often in an old hawk nest or a hollow tree. The male’s deep hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo is answered by the female’s higher voice, and a pair trading calls on a frosty night is a sound of the season.

• Barred and screech owls

  Year-round; loud on calm winter nights · Barred owls in creek and bottomland woods; screech owls in yards and farm groves

  Across wooded valleys the barred owl’s eight-note “who cooks for you, who cooks for you-all” rings out, and pairs sometimes break into a wild, cackling chorus. The robin-sized eastern screech-owl, gray or reddish, gives a descending whinny and a long, even trill from any big tree with a cavity.

• Short-eared owls over the grasslands

  December through early spring, at dusk · Reclaimed surface mines, big hayfields and grasslands, especially in the Western Coalfield

  Short-eared owls come for the winter and hunt low over open grass at dusk with a floppy, moth-like flight, often beside northern harriers. A study on a reclaimed surface mine in Muhlenberg and Ohio counties found old strip-mine grasslands make good winter hunting ground for both. The department lists the species as an uncommon to rare winter visitor and asks birders to report any group of five or more roosting together.

How do Kentucky’s animals get through the winter?

• Bats in deep hibernation

  October to April · Mammoth Cave, Carter Caves and caves and old mines across the karst belt

  Thirteen kinds of bats are confirmed at Mammoth Cave National Park, and eight or nine of them use its caves for raising young or for the winter sleep. A hibernating bat lives on fat stored in fall, and each time it is woken it spends some of that reserve; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service names human disturbance as a threat to the endangered Indiana bat. White-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has killed over 90 percent of some species, reached Mammoth Cave in 2012, which is why tour groups there cross a cleaning mat. Leave wild caves and mine openings alone until spring.

• Black bears in their dens

  Through winter; out again in late March or April · Eastern Kentucky, especially the southeastern mountains

  The department says Kentucky’s bears den for the winter and come out in late March or early April. BearWise, the bear-awareness program of the southeastern state wildlife agencies, notes that bears sometimes den, and even give birth, under decks and in crawl spaces. In bear country, put away bird seed, pet food and garbage and close up sheds before a bear chooses your place.

• River otters wide awake

  All winter, most active at dawn and dusk · Rivers, lakes, sloughs and beaver ponds statewide

  Otters were nearly gone from Kentucky when the department released 355 at 14 sites between 1991 and 1994, on the Barren, Big Sandy, Green, Kentucky, Licking and Salt rivers. A 2010 study found them in every major watershed in the state. They fish all winter and leave signs on the banks: five-toed, partly webbed tracks, mud slides, and piles of fish scales and crayfish shells on a log or point.

• Tracks in the mud

  After rain, a thaw or a light snow · Creek banks, farm-pond edges, puddles on trails

  Kentucky’s snow seldom lasts, but its mud records the night. Raccoons leave small hand-shaped prints, opossums a splayed thumb on the hind foot, deer paired split hearts and coyotes neat ovals with claw marks.

What is still green or in berry in the Kentucky woods in December?

• American holly

  Red berries from fall through February · Moist woods and ravines; planted widely

  Kentucky’s native holly keeps its prickly, leathery leaves all winter, and only the female trees bear red fruit, which needs a male tree nearby. Robins, bluebirds, waxwings and mockingbirds strip the berries through the winter, often after a hard freeze softens them. The fruit is mildly toxic to people and pets.

• Eastern redcedar

  Blue cones all winter on female trees · Old fields, fencerows, limestone glades and roadcuts, especially in the Bluegrass and Pennyroyal

  The cedar of so many central Kentucky fencerows turns a bronzy brown-green in winter. Female trees carry dusty blue, berry-like cones eaten by cedar waxwings, robins and yellow-rumped warblers, and the dense branches shelter roosting birds.

• Christmas fern

  Green all winter · Shady slopes, ravines and stream banks statewide

  This common woodland fern keeps its glossy fronds all winter, lying flat on the leaves by January. Each leaflet has a small lobe at its base, like the toe of a stocking, one reason for the name; the other is that it is still green at Christmas.

• Mistletoe

  Easiest to spot when the trees are bare · High in the crowns of maples, oaks and other hardwoods, often along streams

  American mistletoe is a half-parasite that makes its own sugar but draws water and minerals from its host. Its round green clumps show up in leafless trees, and its sticky white berries ripen in winter. Birds eat them and wipe the seeds onto branches, starting new plants. Keep any sprigs brought indoors away from children and pets, since the berries are toxic.

When is the shortest day and the earliest sunset in Kentucky?

What is December weather like in Kentucky, and what might El Niño mean this winter?

What can you see in Kentucky’s night sky in December?

• The Geminids

  Active December 4 to 20; best on the night of Sunday, December 13, into Monday, December 14 · Anywhere overhead, away from lights

  The International Meteor Organization expects a peak with only a slim crescent moon, which sets in mid-evening. Under a truly dark sky the Geminids can top 100 meteors an hour; from a Kentucky backyard a few dozen is more likely. The radiant is highest around 2 a.m. Dress for a deer stand and recline.

• The Cold Moon, nearest of the year

  Full Wednesday, December 23, at 8:28 p.m. Eastern (7:28 p.m. Central) · Rising in the northeast at dusk

  A December full moon climbs high at midnight, the reverse of the low winter sun at noon. This one falls just hours before the moon’s monthly perigee, so it looks slightly larger than any other full moon this year. On the solstice evening the moon passes near the Pleiades.

• Planets

  All month · Saturn in the south and southwest at dusk; Venus, Jupiter and Mars before dawn

  Saturn is the lone bright evening planet, setting about four hours after the sun by late December. In the hour before sunrise, Venus shines low in the southeast, and keeps climbing into January. Jupiter, bright and cream-colored, rises in mid-evening by Christmas and rides high in the southern sky by dawn, reddish Mars nearby. The thin old moon pairs up with Venus and Spica low in the dawn twilight of December 4 and 5.

• The Ursids, then a January bonus

  Ursids around December 22; Quadrantids the night of January 3 into 4 · Northern sky

  The small Ursid shower is drowned this year by a nearly full moon. The Quadrantids, due to peak late on Sunday evening, January 3, when the Moon is just a sliver that rises in the small hours, are the better bet; look northeast in the hours before dawn on the 4th.

What are good outdoor outings for Kentucky families in December?

Safety notes for December in Kentucky