What to look for in nature in New Jersey this December

Where can you see harlequin ducks and winter sea ducks in New Jersey?

• Harlequin ducks at Barnegat Light

  Late fall through early spring; settled in by December · The jetty and inlet at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, north end of Long Beach Island

  Harlequins breed beside fast rivers in the far north and winter in rough surf against rock. New Jersey’s coast is almost all sand, so the Barnegat jetty, built to hold the inlet in place, is their stronghold here. Photographers who work the jetty describe a wintering flock of about 25 to 30. Males are blue-gray with rusty sides and white slashes on the head and breast, and at mid-tide they climb out to rest on the stones, often close to the walkway along the inlet. Common eiders, the heavy sea duck of the North Atlantic, use the same rocks, and long-tailed ducks call to one another across the inlet on still mornings.

• Purple sandpipers on the rocks

  Late November into March · The Barnegat jetty; other rock jetties along the coast

  This is the one shorebird that seeks out ice-cold spray. Purple sandpipers are stocky and gray with orange-yellow legs and a drooping orange-based bill, and they pick snails and small mussels from the wave-washed rocks just above the waterline. They blend in so well with wet stone that you usually see them only when a wave sends the flock scurrying. Ruddy turnstones, sanderlings and dunlin often work the same beach nearby.

• The last days of the Avalon Seawatch

  Counted daily through December 22 · The seawall at 7th Street, Avalon

  NJ Audubon’s seawall count goes on until the 22nd. The scoter flights have thinned by December, but loons, gannets and late sea ducks still pass, and visitors are welcome. Statewide, the 2024–25 Christmas Bird Counts found 2,426 red-throated loons, the second-highest total on record.

When do bald eagles start nesting in New Jersey?

• Nest repair and courtship

  December into early January; the first eggs from mid-January · Mostly within about 12 miles of the Delaware River and Bay; also reservoirs and rivers statewide

  The Nature Conservancy notes that in December, eagles in southern New Jersey are gathering sticks, grass and other material to rebuild their nests, and that egg laying begins about two weeks into the new year. The state’s 2025 nesting report agrees: the earliest pairs it followed were already incubating in the second week of January. Nests are reused and added to every year, and an old one can be several feet deep. Look for a big, dark mass in the crotch of a tall tree near water, and for paired adults perched side by side or flying together, sometimes locking talons in the air.

• Where to watch

  All winter · Maurice River and the Cumberland County marshes; the Delaware River shore; open reservoirs inland

  The 2025 report placed most nests in the south, near the Delaware River and Bay, and mostly on private land, which makes the Cumberland and Salem bayshore the state’s best eagle country. The Conservancy’s Maurice River Bluffs Preserve near Millville lets you watch from public land. Northern eagles also winter wherever water stays open, so scan any big unfrozen reservoir or river. New Jersey’s 2024–25 Christmas Bird Counts logged 783 bald eagles.

• Give them room

  Nesting season, January through July · Any active nest

  State volunteers watch most nests from at least 1,000 feet with scopes, a good rule for everyone, since a pair disturbed early can abandon the site. Avian influenza has hit eagles here too: active nests fell five percent in 2025, the first drop since monitoring began, and half the complete necropsies on dead eagles tested positive. Report a sick or dead eagle to NJ Fish & Wildlife rather than handling it.

Will snowy owls come to New Jersey this winter, and where can you see owls?

• Snowy owls

  Irregular; in flight years from late November through February · Open beaches and dunes: Sandy Hook, Island Beach State Park, Barnegat Light, Forsythe refuge, Cape May

  These Arctic owls reach New Jersey in good numbers only in some winters, when many young birds move south; in other years almost none do, and no one can predict a flight months ahead. In the big winter of 2017–18, NJ Audubon helped Project SNOWstorm put transmitters on two young males at Island Beach State Park on November 29. One roamed north almost to Sandy Hook before heading back south, and the other crossed Delaware Bay to Cape Henlopen. On the coast they perch in daylight on dunes, jetties and rooftops, watching for ducks and rodents. Give one plenty of room: if it keeps looking at you or flies off, you are costing it energy it cannot spare.

• Great horned owls start their year

  Calling and pairing in December; eggs often by late winter · Woodlots, parks and suburbs statewide

  The New Jersey Conservation Foundation points out that great horned owls begin mating and nesting in December, months ahead of nearly every other bird in the state. Listen after dark for the deep, rhythmic hoots of a pair calling back and forth; the female’s voice is a little higher. Eastern screech owls, which whinny rather than screech, answer from suburban yards, and tiny northern saw-whet owls winter quietly in dense conifers and holly thickets.

• Short-eared owls at dusk

  Winter, in the last half hour of daylight · Large marshes and grasslands, such as the Forsythe impoundments and the Delaware Bayshore marshes

  Short-eared owls hunt in the open, flying low and floppy like big moths over the grass as the light goes. They are listed as endangered in New Jersey, so watch from a road or dike, don’t play recordings, and keep your distance from the fields where they roost.

How do you join a Christmas Bird Count in New Jersey?

Which evergreen trees can you identify in a New Jersey winter?

• Pitch pine

  All year; closed cones easiest to see on bare winter branches · The Pine Barrens above all; also sandy ridges and coastal sites north to the Kittatinny

  Pitch pine holds stiff needles in bundles of three and can push out new tufts straight from a scorched trunk. Many cones hang unopened for years, waiting for the heat of a fire. The Forest Service’s fire ecology database reports that in the Pine Plains nearly every cone is of this sealed type and that the plains historically burned about every six years, which is what keeps those pines under ten feet tall. On a winter walk, count how many old cones on one tree are still shut.

• Atlantic white cedar

  All year · Swamps along Pine Barrens streams; scattered stands in the north up to about 1,500 feet

  Cedars grow so densely that a cedar swamp is dim at noon, and the streams draining them run tea-brown. The light, rot-resistant wood has gone into boats, shingles, barrels and duck decoys since colonial times. Deer are the cedar’s problem in New Jersey: they browse seedlings hardest in winter, when little else is green, and can wipe out young stands.

• Eastern red cedar

  Berries through winter · Old fields, fence rows, roadsides and dunes statewide

  The dark, spire-shaped trees filling old farm fields are eastern red cedars, a juniper. Their foliage often bronzes in the cold, and female trees carry frosty blue “berries,” really soft cones, eaten by robins, bluebirds and the cedar waxwing, which takes its name from the tree.

How do New Jersey’s animals survive the winter?

• Bats asleep in the old iron mines

  Hibernating now through early spring · Abandoned mines and caves, mostly in the Highlands

  New Jersey has about 20 known bat hibernation sites. At the old Hibernia iron mine in Morris County, some 30,000 bats, mostly little brown bats, wintered in the early 2000s; white-nose syndrome arrived in January 2009 and killed more than 90 percent of them. Gates now protect nearly all the state’s known hibernating bats. Stay out of mines and caves in winter: even quiet visitors rouse bats and make them burn fat they cannot replace.

• Frozen wood frogs

  From the first hard freezes until the first warm March rains · Under the leaf litter in woods near vernal pools

  The Conserve Wildlife Foundation describes wood frogs spending the winter as “frog-cicles.” As they cool, their livers pour out glucose and they hold onto urea, and the mix works like antifreeze inside their cells while the water around them freezes. They can stay that way for months, then thaw and head for the vernal pools on the first rainy nights of early spring.

• Foxes pairing up

  Pairs forming now; breeding in January and February · Farm edges, golf courses, dunes and suburbs statewide

  Rutgers Cooperative Extension puts the red fox breeding season in New Jersey in January and February, with kits born in spring. Unpaired foxes look for mates through late fall, so December nights bring sharp barks and screams from the edge of town. Fox tracks in thin snow are easy to tell from a dog’s: small, neat, and set nearly in a single straight line.

• Tracks after the first snow

  The morning after any light snowfall · Trail edges, fields and stream banks; the Skylands for the widest variety

  A thin layer of fresh snow on firm ground shows prints best. The Nature Conservancy names its Johnsonburg Swamp Preserve in Warren County as a place where even bobcat tracks turn up: round, about two inches wide, without claw marks. Deer, cottontail, squirrel and fox are the usual finds, and in a snowless December a muddy creek bank works nearly as well.

When is the earliest sunset in New Jersey, and how short is the shortest day?

How much does it snow in New Jersey in December, and what could El Niño bring?

What can you see in the New Jersey night sky in December 2026?

• The Geminids

  Active December 4–20; best from late evening Sunday, December 13 until dawn Monday, December 14 · The whole sky; the radiant near Castor and Pollux climbs high in the east and south

  Under an ideal sky the International Meteor Organization expects about 150 Geminids an hour, and this year moonlight is hardly a factor: a crescent about a quarter lit sets by mid-evening. Real counts are always lower, and a suburb loses most of the faint ones, so drive to dark ground such as Wharton State Forest, the Pine Plains or the Kittatinny Ridge. The shower strengthens through the night and is richest near 2 a.m., with the radiant high overhead. Geminids move slower than most meteors, which makes them easier to follow.

• The Cold Moon

  Full at 8:28 p.m. Wednesday, December 23; nearly as round on Christmas Eve · Rising in the east-northeast near sunset

  This is the closest full moon of 2026, falling within about seven hours of perigee, its nearest approach to Earth this month. It will look the largest of the year, though the gain over an average full moon can only be seen in a side-by-side photo. Winter full moons also climb higher than summer ones, so on fresh snow its light is enough to walk by. Two nights before it is full, on the 21st, the moon brushes past the Pleiades star cluster. Upcoming phases are listed on the moon phase calendar.

• Solstice and the planets

  Solstice 3:50 p.m. Monday, December 21; planets all month · Saturn in the south and southwest after dark; Venus, Jupiter and Mars in the morning

  On solstice day the noon sun is at its lowest over New Jersey, and a lunchtime shadow stretches about twice your height. Saturn holds the evening sky in the south and southwest and sets earlier each night. Before dawn, brilliant Venus dominates the southeast, still pulling away from the sun until early January; look for it with a thin crescent moon and the star Spica on December 4 and 5. Jupiter clears the eastern horizon by late evening as Christmas nears, and Mars gains brightness at dawn.

• Two weaker showers

  Ursids peak December 22; Quadrantids late on January 3 · Ursids near the Little Dipper; Quadrantids in the northeast before dawn

  A nearly full moon drowns this year’s Ursids, which manage only about ten an hour at best. Save your effort for the Quadrantids, whose short, sharp peak comes late on January 3 near new moon.

What are good December nature outings for New Jersey families?

Safety notes for December in New Jersey