What to look for in nature in Nevada this December

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

• Six counts around Las Vegas and the southern refuges

  Each count picks a day between December 14 and January 5 · Ash Meadows, Desert (Corn Creek), Pahranagat and Muddy River refuges; Red Rock Canyon; Henderson

  Red Rock Audubon Society looks after the counts in Clark, Lincoln and Nye counties. Its Henderson circle takes in neighborhoods and parks in Whitney, Henderson and Lake Las Vegas plus the eastern side of Lake Mead, including Clark County Wetlands Park and the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve, while the Red Rock circle reaches Spring Mountain Ranch and Lovell Canyon. The Corn Creek count at Desert National Wildlife Refuge has a long record: the Fish and Wildlife Service called the 2022 count there the 61st annual in southern Nevada, with 86 species and 3,308 birds in the Corn Creek circle. Sign-ups, and in past years an early-December meeting for new counters, are on its events page.

• Snake Valley, beside Great Basin National Park

  One day in the count window; the 2023 count was December 15 · Baker, Garrison and the east side of the Snake Range

  This circle began in 1996 and has been counted every winter since. The Park Service reports that its 2023 count drew 19 all-day volunteers, its biggest turnout, and found a record 64 species and 3,702 birds, with first-ever Say’s phoebe and California scrub-jay for the circle. Nineteen species have turned up on at least 27 of the 28 counts, among them mallard, golden eagle, horned lark, pinyon jay and mountain chickadee: a fair picture of what lives in eastern Nevada through the winter.

• Northern Nevada’s circles

  Dates set by each circle’s compiler · Truckee Meadows, Carson City, Pyramid Lake, Fallon, Winnemucca, Elko, Ruby Lake and more

  Volunteer compilers run each circle. The 123rd-count summary gives a sense of what turns up: 165 trumpeter swans at Ruby Lake, a high count for the state; 1,086 pinyon jays statewide, the most in five years; and a very rare eastern phoebe in the Truckee Meadows circle.

Where do hawks and eagles spend the winter in Nevada?

• Rough-legged hawks from the Arctic

  Roughly November to April · Open valleys of the north and center; Diamond Valley near Eureka held the study’s largest numbers

  These hawks nest on the Arctic tundra and come south for the winter, rarely farther than Arizona and New Mexico, the Park Service notes. Look for a big hawk hovering on beating wings over a field, or holding still in the wind, marked by a dark band across the belly and a black wrist mark under each wing; the legs are feathered right down to the toes, an adaptation to the cold. In the HawkWatch counts Diamond Valley had more of them than any other site, with 58 in 2010–11, and numbers swing a great deal from winter to winter.

• A hawk roost near Lovelock

  Late afternoon in midwinter · Reservation Road area, Lovelock valley, Pershing County

  The same report describes a winter roost where 44 hawks, mostly ferruginous and then rough-legged, gathered for the night. Watch from a public road toward sunset, stay in the car, and leave if birds flush. Red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, prairie falcons and golden eagles share these valleys.

How do sage-grouse and pygmy rabbits survive a Nevada winter?

• Greater sage-grouse on a sagebrush diet

  All winter · Sagebrush valleys and benches, about 4,000 to 9,000 feet

  The program’s fact sheet says that in winter, sage-grouse can live entirely on sagebrush, eating its leaves and buds when nothing else is available. Flocks feed on the tips of plants that poke through the snow and sit tight under them when weather turns. NDOW lists the species as state protected and as a conservation priority, so watch from a distance and never chase a flock: flushing birds in deep cold costs them energy they cannot easily replace.

• Pygmy rabbits under the snow

  All winter; tracks easiest after a fresh snowfall · Tall, dense big sagebrush on deep soils

  At under a foot long and about a pound, it is easy to overlook. NDOW notes it is the only Nevada rabbit that digs its own burrows, that it depends on sagebrush for both food and cover, and that it generally stays close to its burrow through winter. Look for small round holes at the base of big shrubs and tiny tracks between them.

When do Nevada’s black bears go into their dens?

• Where the bears sleep

  Early December to spring · Steep, rugged slopes with good cover

  Researchers identified 116 den sites. Bears in the wooded Carson Range used hollow trees and rock piles, while bears in the sparser Pine Nut Mountains and Virginia Range mostly chose rock piles. They pick a new den every year rather than going back to an old one.

• The Tahoe exception

  All winter · Lake Tahoe Basin towns

  An NDOW spokesperson has said that most valley bears do den, but that around Lake Tahoe hibernation is close to nonexistent, because bears there keep finding food in garbage, bird feeders and pet food. Feeding bears, on purpose or by accident, is illegal in Nevada and California, so keep trash locked and feeders down in bear country even in December.

What is happening in the Mojave around Las Vegas in December?

• The first freeze in Las Vegas

  Median December 15; before November 28 in one year in ten · Las Vegas valley floor

  NOAA’s records for the airport put the typical first 32 °F night at December 15. In nine years out of ten it has arrived by January 7, so a frost-free winter in the valley is rare. Outlying neighborhoods and low spots get cold earlier than the airport. The station closest to you is on the Nevada first and last frost page.

• Phainopeplas and desert mistletoe

  Winter in the low desert · Mesquite and catclaw washes with clumps of mistletoe

  The male is glossy black with a crest and red eyes, the female a dull brown. Phainopeplas winter in the desert and summer higher up, and in winter they live largely on desert mistletoe berries; the Park Service says one bird can eat up to 1,000 a day. The seeds pass through and stick to branches, where new mistletoe sprouts, so the birds plant their own food, and a male will guard a good clump. Count volunteers photographed one in Ash Canyon at Red Rock Canyon in January 2016.

• Great horned owls start to duet

  Evenings and before dawn, from December · Cottonwoods, cliffs and old hawk nests from Red Rock Canyon to the Wetlands Park

  Few birds nest as early in the year. Audubon notes that pairs begin hooting back and forth at night in December, and that eggs follow by midwinter, with about a month of incubation. Listen at dusk for two deep voices answering each other from a cottonwood or a cliff, and keep your distance once you find a nest.

How can you tell Nevada’s evergreens apart in winter?

• Great Basin bristlecone pine

  All year; best reached in winter on snowshoes · Wheeler Peak Grove and other high groves in Great Basin National Park

  The Park Service calls these the oldest non-clonal species on the planet. A tree known as Prometheus had 4,862 growth rings, about 4,900 years, when it was cut in 1964. To identify one, look for needles in bundles of five, about an inch long, packed all around the branch and running a foot or more back from the tip, like a bottle brush. The cones carry a sharp, curved bristle on each scale, which gives the tree its name.

• Limber pine, its neighbor

  All year · Same high ridges as the bristlecones

  Limber pine also bundles its needles in fives, but they are longer, roughly one and a half to three inches, and grow mostly toward the tips of the branches. Its cones have no bristles. Where the two grow together, comparing a branch of each is the quickest lesson in conifer ID the state offers.

• Singleleaf pinyon and Utah juniper

  All year · Pinyon-juniper woodland on mid-elevation slopes statewide

  The pinyon usually carries its short, stiff needles singly rather than in bundles, which is where the name comes from. Juniper has tiny overlapping scales instead of needles and bluish, berry-like cones that birds eat through the winter. If you cut a Christmas tree on a Forest Service permit, those permits are sold until December 24.

• Getting up there in winter

  December to spring · Great Basin National Park, near Baker

  In winter the upper Wheeler Peak road belongs to snowshoers and skiers once it is closed to vehicles, and the Lehman Creek Trail suits all ages. Lehman Caves Visitor Center lends snowshoes free, in limited numbers, and cave tours run all year. Trails are not groomed, there is no food service, and the park warns that avalanches are common in the high Snake Range.

When is the ice safe in Nevada?

• NDOW’s thickness rule

  Every time you step on · Any frozen pond, reservoir or marsh

  NDOW’s guidance is to stay off ice four inches thick or less; thicker clear ice is suitable for walking and fishing. Carry ice picks or claws, a rope, crampons and dry clothes, and drill test holes as you go, since thin spots are hard to see and conditions change fast. Snow-covered ice, ice near inlets and springs, and ice that has thawed and refrozen are all weaker than they look.

• Why Lake Tahoe never freezes

  All winter · Lake Tahoe

  The director of the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center has explained that Tahoe holds too much deep water to freeze: as surface water cools it sinks and warmer water rises in its place, and the whole column would have to cool to about 39 °F before ice could form on top.

How cold and snowy is December in Nevada, and what might El Niño do?

When is the earliest sunset in Nevada?

What is in the night sky over Nevada in December?

• Geminid meteors

  Night of Sunday, December 13, into Monday, December 14 · Anywhere dark; the radiant in Gemini is high in the south around 2 a.m.

  The year’s richest shower, and 2026 is a good year for it. The meteor organization’s forecast puts the peak near 6 a.m. Pacific time on the 14th, in Nevada’s last dark hour, and the thin crescent moon sets during the evening. Its rate of about 150 an hour is an ideal-sky figure, so expect fewer, but Geminids are slow and often bright. Go out from about 10 p.m., give your eyes 20 minutes, and look about halfway up.

• The Cold Moon, the year’s closest full moon

  Evening of Wednesday, December 23 · Rising in the northeast at dusk

  The moon is exactly full at 5:28 p.m. Pacific time on the 23rd, and it reaches its nearest point to Earth only about seven hours later. No full moon of 2026 comes nearer or looks bigger; it is the year’s last supermoon. It still looks nearly full on Christmas Eve.

• The winter solstice

  Monday, December 21, at 12:50 p.m. Pacific time · Everywhere

  At that moment the sun stands farthest south and noon shadows are at their longest. Note the point on the skyline where it goes down; over the coming weeks it creeps back north.

• Planets and pairings

  All month · Venus before dawn in the southeast; Saturn in the south and southwest after dark

  Venus blazes before dawn and keeps gaining height, with its widest separation from the sun still ahead on January 3. Two mornings, the 4th and the 5th, bring a thin waning moon into a loose trio with Venus and the bright star Spica. Mars and Jupiter belong to the small hours as well, though Jupiter is up by mid-evening as the year closes. Saturn is the lone bright planet after dusk and by the 31st it follows the sun down roughly four hours after sunset. On the 21st, after dark, the waxing moon lies just beside the Pleiades.

• Weaker showers, and one to plan for

  Ursids December 22; Quadrantids January 3 · North and northeast

  The Ursids of December 22 will be lost in bright moonlight. Plan instead for the Quadrantids: the organization’s peak is about 7:25 p.m. Pacific time on January 3, 2027, with the moon nearly new. Comet Encke may brighten enough for binoculars after sunset in late January and February, though comet forecasts often miss.

What can families do outdoors in Nevada in December?

Safety notes for December in Nevada