What to look for in nature in North Dakota this January

How many geese spend the winter in North Dakota, and where?

• Canada geese on the Missouri and Lake Sakakawea

  All winter where water stays open; the survey is flown in early January · The Missouri River below Garrison Dam through Bismarck–Mandan, and the lower end of Lake Sakakawea when it is unfrozen

  Most of North Dakota’s wintering waterfowl sit on the Missouri system, and the counts swing wildly with the ice. In January 2024, following a December that ran nearly 10 degrees above average across much of the state, Lake Sakakawea was still open from about the Van Hook Arm down to the dam and the U.S. Highway 83 causeway. Crews tallied more than 300,000 Canada geese, smashing the old record of about 222,000, and found over 9,000 snow geese, a species that is usually absent at that date. A year later the lake froze over on January 4, two days before the count, and the total fell to about 88,000.

• Nelson Lake, the lake that will not freeze

  All winter · Nelson Lake, Oliver County, near Center

  The Milton R. Young Station, a coal-fired power plant beside Nelson Lake, releases warm water that keeps the reservoir open all year, Game and Fish explains, which also gives its largemouth bass the longest growing season in the state. Geese know it too: the 2026 survey counted 16,894 Canada geese there.

• Mallards and a few diving ducks

  All winter on open water · Below Garrison Dam and along the Missouri at Bismarck

  Crews usually find only 5,000 to 10,000 mallards in January, Game and Fish says, so even the 2024 jump to 43,000 was small by continental standards. The federal flyway report for that year adds a few hundred goldeneyes, buffleheads and mergansers; look for them wherever current keeps the water open.

When do bald eagles start nesting in North Dakota?

• Pairs at the nest in midwinter

  Nest building early January to late February; eggs late February to mid-March · Big cottonwoods along the Missouri, Red, Sheyenne and James rivers, around Devils Lake and the Turtle Mountains, and more and more in lone trees out on the prairie

  According to Game and Fish’s 2024 profile of the species, mated pairs begin courting and building in January and February, lay two or three eggs from late February to mid-March, and share 30 to 35 days of incubation. In the 1970s and 1980s the state had perhaps fewer than three active nests. There were close to 100 by 2010 and about 300 by 2020, and the department now knows of active nests in 47 of the 53 counties, some more than 9 miles from any water.

• Where to watch the wintering birds

  All month where water is open · Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery trails at Riverdale, the river bottoms downstream toward Washburn and Bismarck

  Eagles that are not yet nesting stay near open water and the geese and fish it holds. Watch from a parked car or a trail. Game and Fish wants to hear about nests, but asks observers to report them from a distance that leaves the birds undisturbed.

Why are coyotes and owls so noisy on North Dakota winter nights?

• Coyote choruses

  Breeding from early January through late March; howling peaks in January · Statewide, on the edges of pasture, coulees, river bottoms and shelterbelts

  Game and Fish’s calendar says coyotes start breeding in early January and that their howling is at its peak now. Listen for a few rising yips that build into a wavering, many-voiced howl and then stop as suddenly as they began.

• Red foxes pairing up

  Mid-January to mid-February · Farmsteads, shelterbelts and town edges, often near rodent-rich grassland

  Red foxes breed from mid-January into mid-February, according to the department.

• Bobcats and beavers, quietly

  Both from late January · Bobcats in the badlands and wooded river corridors; beavers in lodges along rivers and creeks

  The same calendar has bobcats breeding from late January to mid-March, as last year’s kittens disperse, and beavers breeding from late January to late March. You will not see the beavers; a snow-covered lodge beside a stick cache is the clue.

• Great horned owls in duet

  Calling all winter; eggs from late February · Tree rows, farmstead groves, river woods and town parks

  Chuck Lura of Prairie Public’s Natural North Dakota writes that great horned owl hooting serves both territory and courtship, and that territories are being announced and contested as winter turns toward February, ahead of eggs in late February. At dusk, listen for two owls trading hoots, then return in daylight to look for a borrowed hawk or crow nest in that grove.

What happens to fish under the ice in a North Dakota winter?

• Burbot spawning in the coldest water

  Midwinter, under the ice · The Missouri River below Garrison Dam, Lake Sakakawea and the larger rivers

  The burbot, also called ling or eelpout, is the only freshwater member of the cod family, a mottled fish with a single chin barbel and an eel-like tail. Game and Fish includes it in the State Wildlife Action Plan, its list of species needing attention, because dams on the Missouri and Red rivers have cut its populations apart. Its spawning season defies the calendar: the Fish and Wildlife Service notes that burbot spawn in winter, under the ice, in writhing masses, and Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery staff have described catching spawning adults just below the dam’s powerhouse in midwinter for their propagation work. Game and Fish calls burbot excellent eating and regrets that anglers have long discarded them for their snakelike looks.

• Winterkill under deep snow

  Builds from midwinter; worst after long, snowy winters · Shallow lakes, sloughs and small reservoirs, especially in the east and north

  Ice cuts the water off from the air, and snow on the ice blocks the light that underwater plants need to keep making oxygen. After the snowy winter of 2022–23, Game and Fish said heavy snow that came early and stayed late had shut out the sunlight, and its crews tested many lakes in February and listed 80 or 90 with worrying oxygen levels. Some were already dead when tested. As the department’s fisheries management section leader put it, winterkill is something they deal with every winter.

What tracks can you find in the snow in North Dakota in January?

• Coyote or fox?

  All winter · Field edges, section lines, frozen creeks

  Both leave neat four-toed prints with claw marks in nearly a straight line. Game and Fish gives a coyote’s front track as about 2½ inches long with a walking stride of 13½ to 17 inches, and a red fox’s as about 2¼ inches with an 8- to 12-inch stride, its toes often blurred by fur.

• Rabbits, jackrabbits and gnawed bark

  All winter, most obvious in deep snow · Shelterbelts, gardens and brushy draws

  Cottontails and white-tailed jackrabbits both hop, so each set shows two big hind prints landing in front of two small fore prints. The guide gives a cottontail hind print of about 2½ inches and a jackrabbit’s of about 5, with bounds up to 6 feet. When snow covers their food, the department says, bark becomes a mainstay, and bark stripped at or just above the snow line, or twigs clipped at a clean 45-degree angle, tells you rabbits are about.

• Life under the snow

  Whenever snow is deep enough to insulate the ground · Grassland, road ditches, lawns and gardens

  Prairie Public’s Natural North Dakota describes the subnivean zone, the space between the ground and the snow, as home all winter to mice, voles, shrews and pocket gophers, which stay active down there and some of which even breed. They are most exposed when they come up. Game and Fish adds that voles feed on bark beneath the snow and that pocket gophers pack soil into snow tunnels, which appear in spring as long ropes of black earth on the ground. Wing marks around a small hole in the snow mean an owl or hawk struck there.

• Mouse-pouncing

  Calm days, especially after fresh snow · Open grassland and field edges

  Coyotes and foxes hunt these rodents by ear: a pause, a cocked head, then a high leap and a face-first dive. What remains is a crater in the snow with a trail leading in and, after a miss, leading out again.

What makes sundogs and light pillars in a North Dakota winter sky?

• Sundogs

  Most often in the hour after sunrise and before sunset on cold days · Either side of the sun, at the same height

  A sundog, or parhelion, is a bright, often rainbow-tinged spot about 22 degrees to the left or right of the sun, roughly a spread hand at arm’s length. The National Weather Service explains it as sunlight refracted through ice crystals, red on the side nearest the sun. Natural North Dakota adds that it takes crystals shaped like flat hexagonal plates, lying nearly level; the more they wobble, the taller and more colorful the sundog.

• Sun pillars and light pillars

  Sunrise and sunset; at night over towns on very cold, calm evenings · Above the rising or setting sun, or above streetlights and yard lights

  A sun pillar is a shaft of light standing straight up from the sun near sunrise or sunset. The Weather Service traces it to ice crystals drifting slowly down and reflecting sunlight. On a still, frigid night, falling crystals can raise similar columns above yard lights and streetlamps.

• Hoarfrost and ice fog

  Clear, calm, very cold nights and the mornings after · Shelterbelts, fences, weeds and wires, especially in the Red River Valley and near open water

  The Weather Service glossary defines hoarfrost as interlocking crystals deposited straight from vapor onto cold, thin objects such as twigs, wires and weed stems. Ice fog, a haze of tiny ice particles, is rare above about −22 °F (−30 °C) and needs a moisture source such as open water or a town. The State Climate Office pictured a Red River Valley weather station furred with hoarfrost and rime after fog on January 9, 2024. Go out early on such a morning: the glitter rarely survives the first breeze.

How cold is January in North Dakota, and what has El Niño done to it before?

How much daylight does North Dakota gain in January?

What can you see in the North Dakota night sky in January?

• The Quadrantid meteor shower

  Active December 28 to January 12; peak the night of Sunday, January 3, into Monday · Anywhere dark; the radiant rises in the northeast through the night

  The Quadrantid peak is brief, only a few hours wide. The American Meteor Society times the 2027 maximum near 9:30 p.m. CST on Sunday the 3rd, and EarthSky closer to 11:45 p.m. The radiant, below the Big Dipper’s handle, sits low in the north at that hour and climbs through the night, so stay out, or set an alarm, for the dark hours before Monday’s dawn. Only a slim crescent moon rises before sunrise. Away from town, twenty or thirty meteors in an hour would be a fine result; lie in a sleeping bag on a sled facing northeast.

• Earth closest to the sun

  Saturday, January 2, at 8:33 p.m. CST · No viewing needed

  At 8:33 p.m. CST on Saturday the 2nd, our planet reaches perihelion, 91.4 million miles from the sun and roughly three million miles closer than in early July. Try that on a child who thinks winter happens because the sun is far away: here the cold comes from a low sun and short days.

• The Wolf Moon, 2027’s nearest full moon

  Full at 6:17 a.m. CST on Friday, January 22 · Setting in the west-northwest before dawn on the 22nd; rising in the east-northeast after sunset that evening

  The January full moon is the closest of the year, about 222,229 miles away, which makes it a supermoon by every common definition. Because it turns full before sunrise in North Dakota, the best views are on the night of Thursday the 21st into Friday morning, when a bright, nearly perfect moon rides high all night, and again on Friday evening. On snow it throws shadows sharp enough to read tracks by.

• Venus at dawn, Jupiter and Saturn after dark

  All month · Venus in the southeast before sunrise; Jupiter rising in the east in the evening; Saturn in the southwest after dusk

  Before dawn, Venus is the brilliant point low in the southeast, standing farthest out from the sun’s glare on Sunday, January 3. Jupiter, heading for opposition in February, rises a little earlier each night, and on the evening of Saturday the 23rd the moon, just past full, keeps it close company. Saturn slides lower in the southwest. Late in the month, a clear western horizon may show Mercury low in the dusk, about half an hour after sundown.

• Northern lights

  Any clear night; darkest skies January 3–12 · Low in the northern sky, best away from town lights

  NASA and NOAA declared the solar maximum in October 2024, and solar activity is now declining, yet strong geomagnetic storms remain possible and North Dakota’s northern latitude helps. Faint displays are easiest to catch on the moonless nights around January 7, and NOAA’s space weather forecasters post a 30-minute aurora outlook online.

What can North Dakota families do outdoors in January 2027?

Safety notes for January in North Dakota