What to look for in nature in Mississippi this January

When do duck numbers peak in the Mississippi Delta?

• Gadwall, shovelers and teal lead the count

  Early to late January · Moist-soil wetlands and flooded fields, densest in the northeastern Delta

  In both of the last two early January reports, MDWFP wrote that dabbling ducks other than mallards made up nearly 70 percent of all the ducks the plane saw. Gadwall, northern shovelers and green-winged teal were the commonest dabblers, northern pintails gathered in good numbers in places, and ring-necked ducks and scaup led the divers. Mallards climbed steeply from December but stayed well under their long-term January average, 140,042 in 2026 against an average near 210,000. Divers favored the aquaculture ponds, as they usually do, and the northeastern Delta held the most birds of every type because it had the most water.

• Snow geese and specklebellies stay through the month

  All January · Harvested rice and soybean country across the Delta

  Both January 2026 and January 2025 reports describe large concentrations of snow, blue and Ross’s geese mixed with many greater white-fronted geese, the bird hunters call the specklebelly. The two are easy to tell apart at a distance: light geese show as a white sheet with black wingtips, while white-fronts are gray-brown, with a pinkish bill, a white patch at its base and dark barring across the belly. Watch from the road shoulder, since nearly all of this land is private.

• What hard freezes do to the flocks

  During and after Arctic outbreaks · Open water: deep oxbows, reservoirs, catfish ponds

  The late January 2025 flight was flown while daytime highs barely cleared freezing. MDWFP found mallards packed into the few fields with open water, needing high-energy grain to stay warm, while biologists suspected many less ice-tolerant ducks had left the Delta for a while for big lakes and reservoirs. Once shallow wetlands thaw, the birds spread back out. After a cold snap, scan large open water near you; that is where the displaced ducks go.

Where can you see bald eagles in Mississippi in January?

• The midwinter count on Arkabutla, Sardis, Enid and Grenada

  First half of January · Corps of Engineers lakes in DeSoto, Tate, Panola, Yalobusha and Grenada counties

  The Corps’ Vicksburg District runs its annual count on all four lakes. In January 2021 its staff tallied 50 eagles across them, a mix of white-headed adults and mottled brown immatures, and the district notes that the lakes have both the fish and the nest sites eagles need, so some birds live there all year. Arkabutla Lake has opened its count to the public: in 2025 anyone could meet rangers at the field office on Arkabutla Dam Road at 7 a.m. on Saturday, January 4, for a four-hour search. Expect something similar on an early-January Saturday, but confirm the 2027 date with the Arkabutla Lake field office before you go. Look along shorelines for big birds perched in snags over open water near the dams.

• Nests with eggs or chicks

  Eggs in fall and early winter; young leave the nest late January into February · Tall trees near lakes, rivers and refuges statewide, including Noxubee NWR

  Southern eagles keep a different calendar from northern ones. The Fish and Wildlife Service says that in the Southeast bald eagles lay their eggs in October or November and the young fledge in late January or February, so a Mississippi nest in January may hold large, dark chicks nearly ready to fly. The same agency calls January National Bald Eagle Watch Month and points to refuges as good places to look. A nest is a pile of sticks several feet across near the top of a tall pine or cypress. Watch with binoculars from a long way off; eagles are protected under federal law, and an adult flushed from the nest leaves the chicks exposed.

Why do salamanders cross Mississippi roads on rainy January nights?

• Spotted salamander

  Rainy winter nights; in neighboring Alabama, breeding has been recorded from late December into early February · Hardwood forests near seasonal pools; found across the state

  A chunky black or gray salamander with two rows of round yellow spots, often orange on the head. The Mississippi herpetology site msherps.com describes it as a winter breeder found statewide and shows adults, females and egg masses from a large breeding event in Forrest County. Alabama’s wildlife agency says heavy rain at night sends the adults to newly flooded pools, sometimes from 300 yards away, and that they return to the same pools year after year. The egg masses are firm balls of jelly fixed to sunken twigs, each holding 200 or more eggs, and many turn green as an alga grows inside.

• Marbled salamander

  Larvae in winter pools after fall rains; adults move on rainy nights · Bottomland and upland woods across most of the state

  Black with bold white or silvery bands, the marbled salamander works on a different schedule. Next door in Alabama, the state agency records breeding in October and November, and the courtship happens on dry ground. A female tucks her eggs, up to a couple of hundred, into a damp dip in an empty pool basin and wraps herself around them; once rain floods the spot, they hatch almost at once. After a wet fall, the small, gilled larvae are already swimming in the pools by the time spotted salamanders arrive.

When are black bear cubs born in Mississippi?

• Half-pound cubs in the den

  Born in January; leave the den around April · Tree hollows in bald cypress and oak, ground nests and brush piles in the Delta, the loess bluffs and the coastal counties

  A newborn cub weighs about 8 ounces, blind and nearly hairless, and nurses while its mother stays in the den. By the time the family comes out in April the cubs weigh 4 to 5 pounds. They stay with her for about 18 months, which is why a female breeds only every other year. MDWFP points out that this slow pace makes every adult female precious: the state had perhaps 40 bears in 2002 and has about 150 now, in three main areas (the Gulf Coast, the loess bluffs of southwest Mississippi and the Mississippi River Delta), and the agency has documented more than 30 cubs born in the state since 2005, after 40 years with none on record.

• Bears that stay awake

  All winter, especially males · Farm edges and bottomland woods near the river and the coast

  Only pregnant females truly must den. Males may spend just a few weeks inside, and bears in farm country eat surprisingly ordinary winter food: MDWFP says wheat and oats can make up as much as 60 percent of a bear’s winter diet there. Report a sighting or a set of tracks to MDWFP, which maps them for its research.

Which birds spend the winter on the Mississippi Gulf Coast?

• Loons and grebes on the Sound

  Late fall through early spring · Open water off Bay St. Louis, Long Beach, Biloxi and Ocean Springs

  The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources’ coastal bird guide says common loons winter on the coast, mostly out on the Sound, in pale gray plumage with a thick, pointed bill; the yodeling call people know from northern lakes is rarely heard here. Horned grebes, small, gray and white, dive just off the beach, and pied-billed grebes keep to the bayous. The same guide lists the red-breasted merganser, a shaggy-crested fish-eating duck with a thin, saw-edged bill, as most common on the coast in winter.

• Hooded mergansers at Davis Bayou

  Winter · Davis Bayou area of Gulf Islands National Seashore, Ocean Springs

  Audubon’s Mississippi Coastal Birding Trail singles out the sheltered water at Davis Bayou for its winter mix of waterbirds, including good numbers of hooded mergansers, which are hard to find on public land along the immediate coast. Males raise a white, black-edged fan of a crest. The two-mile Davis Bayou Trail runs through maritime forest, swamp and tidal marsh, where seaside sparrows live all year.

• Mississippi sandhill cranes in their best season

  Fall and winter are the easiest months · Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge, Gautier

  The refuge itself says fall and winter offer the best chance of seeing its critically endangered, non-migratory cranes, which grow secretive once nesting starts in spring. The population is about 200 birds. Ask at the visitor center desk whether any guided programs are on the January schedule.

How do you identify Mississippi trees in winter, and which one flowers first?

• Swamp red maple in flower

  January through February · Wet, alluvial soils, swamp edges and river bottoms

  MSU Extension’s guide to native trees lists swamp red maple, the southern variety of red maple, as a winter-flowering tree whose red flowers appear from January through February, followed immediately by red winged seeds. From a distance a grove of them looks like a red haze over a gray swamp. Up close, the tiny flowers crowd bare twigs weeks before any leaf.

• Sweetgum: gumballs and early flower spikes

  Fruits hang all winter; male flower spikes form in late winter · Woods, old fields and yards statewide

  The spiny, golf-ball-sized fruits are the giveaway, dangling from bare twigs and littering the ground. MSU Extension notes that the tree’s male flower spikes show in late winter, so by late winter look for upright green clusters at the branch tips.

• Sycamore, beech and winged elm by their bark

  All winter · Creek and river banks (sycamore); rich, moist slopes (beech); fencerows and dry woods (winged elm)

  The Wildflower Center in Austin notes that on old sycamores the outer bark flakes off in plates to leave smooth, whitish inner bark, so the upper limbs glow white against a winter sky. American beech keeps smooth, light gray bark all its life and holds many of its dry, copper-colored leaves through the winter. Winged elm is named for the broad, corky wings that run along some of its twigs in pairs, easy to feel even in the dark.

How much daylight does Mississippi gain in January?

How cold does January get in Mississippi, and will El Niño change it?

What can you see in the night sky over Mississippi in January?

• The Quadrantid meteors

  Late evening of Sunday, January 3, into the pre-dawn of Monday, January 4 · Anywhere dark; the radiant climbs in the northeast through the night

  The Quadrantid maximum is brief, around six hours, and forecasters place it between late evening on the 3rd and about midnight. Their radiant lies between Boötes and Draco and starts out close to the horizon and gains height all night, which is why counts tend to improve toward dawn. A slim crescent that rises late leaves the sky dark. Under truly dark skies, such as a Delta farm road or a clearing in the De Soto National Forest, you may count a few dozen an hour around the peak, but town lights cut that to a handful.

• Earth closest to the Sun

  Saturday, January 2, 8:33 p.m. CST · Everywhere

  Perihelion, the point in Earth’s slightly oval orbit nearest the Sun, comes in the middle of our winter, which shows that distance does not make the seasons; the tilt of Earth’s axis does. We are about 91.4 million miles from the Sun that night.

• Venus, the morning star

  All month; farthest from the Sun on January 3 · Southeast before sunrise

  On the 3rd Venus swings out to 47 degrees from the Sun, the most it gets on this morning run, and outshines everything else at dawn all month. Through a small telescope you can see that only half its disk is lit.

• The Wolf Moon, closest full moon of 2027

  Full at 6:17 a.m. Friday, January 22; best the night of January 21 · Rising in the east-northeast around sunset on the 21st and setting near sunrise on the 22nd

  The Moon passes perigee, its closest point, about 14 hours before it is full, so this is the year’s biggest and brightest full moon. Watch it come up over the tree line on the evening of Thursday the 21st. Two evenings later, after dark on Saturday, January 23, look for bright Jupiter just beside the waning Moon, with the star Regulus close by.

• Mercury after sunset

  Last week of January into early February · Low in the west-southwest, 30 to 45 minutes after sunset

  The smallest planet appears in dusk during the final week of January and is best placed for the whole winter on February 3. You will need a flat western horizon. Saturn shines higher in the southwest after dark.

What can Mississippi families do outside in January 2027?

Safety notes for January in Mississippi