What to look for in nature in Minnesota this February

When do bald eagles lay eggs in Minnesota?

• The DNR EagleCam

  Streaming all winter; eggs expected by mid-February · A nest near the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities area (online)

  The Nongame Wildlife Program has run a public eagle camera for more than a decade. The original nest, filmed for ten years, fell in April 2023; a new camera installed in October 2024 looks into the nest of a pair that had used it for at least four years and fledged two eaglets in 2025. Incubation lasts about 35 days from the last egg, and both adults take turns, though the female usually takes the night shift. If eggs appear in mid-February, watch for the first pip around the third week of March. The camera is paid for largely by donations to the Nongame Wildlife Fund, including the checkoff on the state income tax form.

• Reading a nest from the road

  February and March · Big cottonwoods and pines near rivers and lakes statewide, especially the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix valleys

  The DNR says eagle nests are commonly 6 to 8 feet across and weigh several hundred pounds, so they stand out in bare winter crowns. In February, the clue is behavior: if a white head shows above the rim day after day and the mate perches nearby, the pair is probably incubating. Stay well back. Eggs left uncovered in subzero air can chill quickly, so watch from a vehicle or from the far side of a field with binoculars. The DNR’s last statewide survey, in 2005, counted more than 800 active nests, and the number has very likely grown since.

• Owlets before eagles

  Late February into March · Old hawk and crow nests in woodlots and river bottoms

  Great horned owls start a few weeks ahead of the eagles. The DNR gives their eggs 30 to 37 days to hatch, so nests begun in January can hold downy white owlets by the end of February, tucked under the hen while the male hunts. Check the same old stick nests you found last month, from a distance.

How much of Lake Superior freezes, and when is the ice at its peak?

• Ice that comes and goes

  Peak usually late February to early March · Duluth harbor, Park Point, Two Harbors, Grand Marais harbor

  The yearly maximum swings wildly. In GLERL’s record the lake was 100 percent covered on March 8, 1996, and nearly so in 2014 and 2019, but only 8.2 percent at its peak in 2012. Wind matters as much as cold: a northeast gale can push loose pack ice against the Minnesota shore and pile it into high ridges, then a shift in wind can clear it away within a day.

• Stacked ice on the shore

  After strong onshore winds · Cobble beaches and harbors from Duluth to Grand Marais

  When pans of thin lake ice are driven ashore, they break, slide over one another and freeze into heaps of glassy plates. These are fun to photograph and dangerous to climb: the piles shift and can hide open water between plates. Enjoy them from the beach.

Which birds and small creatures are the first signs of spring in Minnesota?

• Horned larks on the gravel

  Early February into late March · Gravel roads, plowed field edges and manure-spread fields, especially in the southwest prairie, Red River Valley and farm country statewide

  The Saint Paul Bird Alliance, the local Audubon chapter, notes that the larks that went south start moving back into Minnesota in early February and keep coming through late March. The Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas adds that northern birds drift south in December and January and that a few stay through the winter, so the first flocks of February are a mix of travelers and residents. Look for small flocks that flush from a road shoulder ahead of the car with a thin, tinkling call and black tail feathers, then land again just ahead. Up close the male shows a black mask, a yellow face and two tiny feather horns. Before long the males sing their faint, tinkling song high over the fields. The atlas describes horned larks as birds of cropland, pasture and roadsides with lots of bare ground.

• Spring songs from winter birds

  Mild, sunny mornings · Yards, parks and woods statewide

  Residents start singing before any migrant arrives. On the first bright mornings of the month, listen for the clear two-note whistle of a black-capped chickadee, the long whistled phrases of northern cardinals in the south and the steady drumming of woodpeckers on resonant dead limbs. Write the date of the first one you hear; a dated first song is worth comparing year to year.

• Snow fleas

  Mild, sunny days in late winter and early spring · Snow around tree bases and in woods statewide

  Look at the snow around a tree trunk on a sunny afternoon: if the sooty specks are hopping, they are springtails (Hypogastrura nivicola), each about an eighth of an inch long, not fleas at all. The University of Minnesota Extension says they appear on top of the snow in late winter, often in large numbers near the bases of trees, and that they do not bite people, harm plants or damage buildings. Extension’s gardeners count them as helpers, since they break down decaying plant material in the soil. A hand lens turns a sooty patch of snow into a crowd of tiny animals.

When do you tap maple trees in Minnesota?

• When sap flows

  Nights below freezing, days in the 40s · Sugarbushes, woodlots and yard maples in the southeast, center and north

  Extension explains that sap flows when the morning warms quickly after a night below freezing. A day that stays below freezing stops the flow, and so does a stretch of warm nights. The DNR adds that the season is over once temperatures stay above freezing and the leaf buds appear.

• Which trees to tap

  Any time before the first run · Statewide

  Sugar maple is the favorite, with the sweetest sap; red maple, silver maple and box elder also work. A tree needs a trunk at least 10 inches across, measured 4 feet up, before it gets a single tap, according to Extension. Sugar maple sap is about 2 percent sugar, so it takes roughly 40 to 43 gallons boiled down to make a gallon of syrup, and the DNR’s guide notes that box elder may need 60. A single tap hole gives about 10 to 12 gallons in a season.

When do foxes, coyotes and skunks mate in Minnesota?

• Red foxes

  January and February · Farmland, suburbs and woods edges statewide

  The University of Minnesota Duluth’s Mammals of Minnesota says red foxes mate in January and February and the kits, three to seven of them, are born about 52 days later. Look for two sets of fox tracks traveling together, and for urine marks on snowbanks and stumps where the pair has paused. At night, listen for sharp, barking calls.

• Coyotes

  Mating January through February · Statewide, including the metro

  According to the DNR, the coyote mating season begins in January and runs through February, and adults usually mate for life once they start breeding at about two years old. Five to seven pups follow in April. A pair’s trails often run side by side for miles across a frozen marsh or field. Coyotes live in the metro as well, so keep small dogs leashed on winter walks.

• Striped skunks

  Breeding late February and March · Field edges, farmyards and towns, mostly in the south and center

  The DNR’s Minnesota Conservation Volunteer says skunks den up for the winter but come out on warm spells, and that breeding begins in late February and runs into March, with young born in May. A whiff of skunk on a thawing February night, or a line of small, flat-footed tracks between buildings, usually means a male out searching.

Do Minnesota woodchucks come out on Groundhog Day?

• The real midpoint of winter

  February 3 and 4 · Everywhere

  The old cross-quarter day that Groundhog Day grew from sits at the middle of astronomical winter, with the solstice six weeks behind and the equinox six weeks ahead. In Central time the sun reaches that point on the evening of Wednesday, February 3, and the exact halfway point in time between the solstice and the equinox falls in the small hours of Thursday, February 4. So the folklore is a day or two early.

• Who wakes first

  March · Field edges, road banks and yards

  The male woodchuck surfaces first, sometime in March, and checks the burrows of the females whose ranges overlap his. If snow still covers the ground, he lives on what is left of his fall fat. Mark a burrow you know now, and check it after the first warm spell.

How hard is late winter on Minnesota deer?

• How the index works

  Updated weekly through the winter · Mainly the northern forest

  The index adds one point for every day at or below 0 °F and another for every day with 15 inches of snow or more on the ground. Under the DNR’s current categories, a season total of 50 or less is mild, 51 to 119 moderate and 120 or more severe. The agency stresses that depth matters more than temperature, because deer burn reserves plowing through snow. Fawns are most at risk in a hard winter, then bucks worn down by the rut, then does.

• Deer in the conifers

  Deep-snow periods · Cedar swamps and dense spruce and fir stands in the north

  In deep snow, northern deer bunch up under thick evergreen cover close to food; the DNR describes a canopy of 70 percent or more as ideal. Look for packed trails, beds and browse lines where every reachable twig of cedar and maple has been nipped. Leave yarded deer alone, since each flight burns energy they cannot replace until green-up.

How cold and snowy is February in Minnesota, and what might El Niño do?

How much daylight does Minnesota gain in February?

What can you see in the Minnesota night sky in February?

• Mercury low in the west

  Around February 2 to 3, best from late January to about February 10; thin moon nearby on Sunday, February 7 · West-southwest, 30 to 45 minutes after sunset

  The innermost planet stands farthest from the solar glare, a bit over 18 degrees out, at about the stroke of midnight Central time between Tuesday the 2nd and Wednesday the 3rd. No evening appearance this winter is better. On Sunday evening, February 7, a day-old crescent moon sits close to it; bring binoculars and find a spot with an open western horizon.

• Jupiter at opposition

  Wednesday, February 10 · Rising in the east at sunset, high in the south around midnight

  Earth passes between the sun and Jupiter at 6:21 p.m. CST on the 10th, putting the planet opposite the sun: up at sunset, highest around midnight and still up at dawn. It shines at magnitude -2.5 and is about 405 million miles away. Rest binoculars on a car roof and look for its moons strung out on either side.

• Mars at opposition

  Friday, February 19, closest the next day · East in the evening, near Jupiter and the star Regulus

  Opposition for Mars comes on Friday morning, the 19th; on Saturday the planet is at its nearest, some 63 million miles off. Mars is near the far end of its orbit, so this pass is a modest one, and the planet looks like a steady orange star rather than a blazing beacon, but it is the closest Mars comes until 2029.

• The Snow Moon and a faint eclipse

  Saturday, February 20, full at 5:23 p.m. CST · Rising in the east-northeast at dusk

  Almanac writers split over calling this one a supermoon, since it misses or meets the cutoff depending on the rule. It also comes up already inside Earth’s pale outer shadow, a penumbral eclipse. In Minneapolis the moon comes up at 5:48 p.m., after the deepest point (5:13 p.m.), and the eclipse ends at 7:13 p.m. At most you might notice a faint gray dimming along one side of the moon while it is still low in the twilight; most people will see nothing unusual. Whatever you see, the full moon that night shares Leo with Jupiter, Regulus and Mars, and a night earlier the moon slides right past Jupiter.

• Venus before dawn

  All month · Southeast before sunrise

  Venus is still the morning star, blazing low in the southeast as dawn begins to gray the sky, though it is slowly sinking toward the sun after its January elongation.

What can Minnesota families do outside in February?

Safety notes for February in Minnesota