What to look for in nature in Pennsylvania this December

Where can you see owls in Pennsylvania in winter?

• Short-eared owls over the old strip mines

  Late October through winter; best in the last half hour of daylight · Piney Tract in Clarion County; Imperial Grasslands in western Allegheny County; big hayfields and reclaimed mine grasslands statewide

  This is the Game Commission’s endangered “marsh owl,” a rare breeder here that arrives in late September and October and may stay the winter if voles are plentiful and the cold is not too harsh. It hunts low over open ground on long wings, mostly at dusk and dawn, and in a good year several work the same field. The agency names the Piney Tract Important Bird Area in Clarion County and the Imperial Grasslands in Allegheny County, both reclaimed strip mines; until the late 1980s dozens wintered in the tall grass around Philadelphia’s airport. Listen for the raspy bark the Commission compares to a small terrier flying overhead. Watch from the road and stay out of the grass.

• Snowy owls, in some winters

  Mainly November to January, in irruption years · Open, treeless ground: big farm fields, airports, lakeshores

  Snowy owls are rare and irregular visitors. In the Game Commission’s account they appear mainly from November through January, and big flights follow a good lemming year on the Arctic tundra; the cycle tends to repeat every four or five years. Unlike most owls they hunt by day, often from a fence post or the middle of a frozen field. There is no reliable forecast for a flight, so check eBird’s recent sightings for your county. Should you spot one, stay inside your vehicle, do not walk toward it, and do not post the exact spot of a bird on private land.

• Great horned owls dueting

  Hooting from fall into early winter; on eggs from February, sometimes late January · Woodlots, farm country, city parks and suburbs statewide

  The great horned owl is the most widespread owl in the state and the earliest nester. Pairs court from fall into early winter, and on a still December night you can hear the male and female hooting back and forth, a deep, measured five-note call that carries a long way. Females are usually on eggs in February and early March, now and then by late January, sometimes under a coat of snow. Step outside after dark on a calm evening, listen for a few minutes, and write down the date and time of the first duet.

• Long-eared and saw-whet owls in the evergreens

  Through the winter · Dense groves of pine, spruce and red cedar; vine tangles

  Both are secretive. Long-eared owls roost in thick conifer stands, often several together, and the Game Commission warns that they are sensitive to disturbance at winter roosts. The tiny northern saw-whet owl, the smallest owl in Pennsylvania at seven or eight inches long, roosts in red cedars, other tight evergreens and vine tangles. Whitewash and pellets under a dense pine give a roost away; look once, from a distance, and leave.

Where do bald eagles gather in Pennsylvania in December?

• Eagles at open water

  All month, and more as lakes freeze · River rapids, dam tailwaters and the deep reservoirs that freeze last, such as Raystown Lake

  When cold weather locks up the smaller lakes, eagles crowd onto whatever stays open: river rapids, dam tailwaters and the deep reservoirs that freeze last. The Game Commission’s viewing guide notes that its midwinter survey has recorded as many as 19 bald eagles at Raystown Lake, and volunteers help the agency run that count every winter. Young bald eagles are brown, blotched with white, for several years before the white head comes in, and they are easy to mistake for a golden eagle. Watch with a scope from the car.

• Pairs on their territories

  Through the winter; stick-carrying from mid-January; eggs February to April · Rivers and lakes statewide; the Hanover and Farm Country nest cams online

  Many nesting pairs stay on their territories all year, perching together near last year’s nest. The Game Commission says the pairs begin adding sticks as early as mid-January as part of courtship, and eggs follow between February and April. Nests are reused and grow each year, some until they break the tree. Federal guidelines keep people at least 660 feet from an active nest. The easiest way to follow a pair is the Game Commission’s Hanover bald eagle cam, streaming since 2015, and its Farm Country cam, where eagles have nested for at least 15 years.

• The last golden eagles, and the end of the counts

  Golden eagles mid-October to early December; Hawk Mountain counts to December 15, the Allegheny Front to December 31 · Hawk Mountain near Kempton; the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch near Central City

  The Game Commission describes golden eagles as regular migrants through Pennsylvania from mid-October through early December, using the ridges between the Allegheny Front and the Kittatinny Ridge, and a few stay the winter out of sight in remote forest. The first cold front of December can still bring a late golden eagle or a rough-legged hawk past the lookouts. Hawk Mountain closes its count on December 15; the Allegheny Front keeps counting until the last day of the year. Check HawkCount for the day’s totals before you go.

How can you join a Christmas Bird Count in Pennsylvania?

• Join a field party

  One day per circle, December 14 to January 5 · Find your circle with Audubon’s online Circle Finder

  Each circle has a compiler who sets the date and splits the circle into sections; beginners join a team with an experienced leader. You walk, drive and stop, counting every bird and the number of each species, and in the evening many counts gather for a tally supper. Participation is free. Reach the compiler by early December, because most dates are set by then; local Audubon chapters and bird clubs usually post them in November.

• Count from your kitchen window

  The day of your local count · Any home inside a count circle

  Feeder counters keep a tally of everything that visits their yard during set hours on count day and send it to the compiler. For each species, record the biggest group in view at once rather than adding up visits, or one busy chickadee becomes twelve. If you already count for Project FeederWatch, the method is the same.

• What December counts find

  Every count · Statewide

  Most Pennsylvania counts turn up the winter regulars (juncos, white-throated sparrows, cardinals, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers, red-tailed hawks), with ducks and gulls on open water and Lake Erie. Irruption species are the surprise: this winter’s finch forecast calls a small flight of evening grosbeaks into Pennsylvania quite possible and expects more red crossbills in the Northeast as the winter goes on, while purple finches look less likely to come south.

How do Pennsylvania’s animals get through the winter?

• Woodchucks: true hibernators

  Denned since the hard frosts of October; males wake in February · Burrows under fields, fencerows and sheds

  The Game Commission says woodchucks begin denning with October’s hard frosts and few are still active after the first of November. In hibernation a woodchuck’s body temperature drops from above 90 °F into the low 40s and its pulse falls from over 100 to about four beats a minute. It lives all winter on fat, and males come out first, in February, the real story behind the Punxsutawney groundhog. Rabbits sometimes borrow the upper tunnels while it sleeps.

• Cave bats, and white-nose syndrome

  Hibernating from October and November to spring · Limestone caves, old mines and tunnels

  Nine bat species occur regularly in Pennsylvania. Three migrate south; six hibernate underground, usually in caves, clustered on the ceiling with their body temperature close to the air around them. A fungal disease, white-nose syndrome, makes them wake too often and burn their fat too fast, and the Game Commission reports a 99 percent decline across all six hibernating species. A caver’s visit does the same harm, so stay out of caves and old mines until spring. A bat flying on a winter afternoon is in trouble; report it to the Game Commission rather than handling it.

• Wood frogs, frozen solid

  Under the leaf litter from late fall to the first warm rain of March · Moist woods statewide

  The wood frog spends the winter just under the leaves, and on a hard-frozen night much of it freezes. The Chesapeake Bay Program describes ice forming within its skin, with its heart, breathing and blood flow all stopping until it thaws. It is one of the first frogs to call in spring, from the first warm rain in March.

• Chickadees: caching and cold nights

  All winter · Feeders, woodlots and backyards

  Chickadees store seeds in bark crevices, curled leaves and clumps of pine needles in the fall and remember where they put them. Winter flocks of three to twelve often pick up titmice, nuthatches and downy woodpeckers. At night each one roosts alone in a cavity or dense evergreen, and on cold nights its body temperature can fall by as much as 20 degrees, a controlled chill that saves fuel. The Game Commission notes that a chickadee loses weight every night and must refuel the next day, which is why a full feeder matters most after a frigid night.

• Black bears in the den, red foxes in the open

  Bears denned through winter, cubs born in January; foxes bark in late winter · Statewide

  By December most of Pennsylvania’s black bears are in their dens, the males having followed the pregnant females a few weeks behind, though a mild spell can bring one out to feed. Red foxes do the opposite: according to the Game Commission they seldom use dens in winter, sleeping in the open with the tail curled over the nose, and they mate in February after a late-winter season of barking at night.

Which evergreen trees can you identify in a Pennsylvania winter?

• Eastern hemlock, the state tree

  All year; adelgid wool most visible in winter · Shaded ravines and stream valleys statewide; Cook Forest, Ricketts Glen and the Pine Creek gorge

  Hemlock needles are flat and short, from a quarter inch to a half inch, blunt at the tip, with two white bands underneath, and the little cones hang from the twig tips. Hemlocks line cool stream valleys, shade the water for trout and give deer and birds shelter from wind and snow. DCNR reports that an aphid-like pest from Asia, the hemlock woolly adelgid, had turned up in every one of the 67 counties by the close of 2023. Flip a twig: white, cottony tufts clinging under the newest growth, like the ends of cotton swabs, mean the tree is infested.

• Eastern white pine

  All year · Old fields, ridges and plantations statewide

  Often the tallest tree in a Pennsylvania woodlot. Its soft, bluish-green needles come in bundles of five, which is easy to remember because “white” has five letters, and the cones are long and slender, six to eight inches. Crossbills, if they come this winter, will be in the white pines.

• Pitch pine

  All year · Dry ridgetops, rocky slopes and the Pocono plateau

  Stiff, yellow-green needles in bundles of three, and dark, scaly, plated bark. Pitch pine grows where little else will, on thin, dry, rocky ground, and its trunk often sprouts tufts of needles directly from the bark after a fire or injury.

• Eastern red cedar

  All year; bluish “berries” in winter · Old fields, fencerows and limestone valleys, especially in the south

  Not a true cedar but a juniper, with scale-like leaves and dusty blue, berry-like cones that feed birds through the winter; the cedar waxwing is named for it. Its dense foliage shelters roosting sparrows and small owls.

What tracks and signs can you find in Pennsylvania snow and mud?

• Fox: a single line

  Any morning after fresh snow · Field edges, farm lanes, woods roads

  A walking fox sets each back paw almost exactly where the front paw fell, so its trail reads as one tidy row of prints, nearly in a straight line. The Game Commission notes that the gray fox has larger toe pads on a smaller foot than the red, and biologists use that difference to tell the two apart in snow. Tracking studies suggest a fox covers about five miles a night hunting in winter, so follow a trail for a while: it will lead to mouse holes, brush piles and the spot where it pounced.

• Deer, turkey, squirrel and rabbit

  All month · Woods and edges statewide

  Deer leave split hearts, with the points facing the way they went. Wild turkeys leave big three-toed prints and scratched patches where they have raked the leaves for acorns. Gray squirrels hop, leaving the long hind prints ahead of the front ones, and the trail runs from tree to tree. Cottontails leave a Y-shaped group of four prints and, at the edge of a thicket, twigs clipped off at a clean angle.

• Signs that don’t need snow

  All winter · Everywhere

  Gnawed acorn and hickory shells on a stump; a ring of feathers where a hawk ate; buck rubs from the fall, now gray; bark stripped at the base of a young tree by voles under the snow; woodpecker holes ringed with fresh chips. Date each find on the reading-the-signs plate.

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

How much snow does Pennsylvania get in December, and what could El Niño mean this winter?

When is the ice safe on Pennsylvania lakes and ponds?

What is in the Pennsylvania night sky in December 2026?

• The Geminids, the best shower of the year

  Night of Sunday, December 13 into Monday the 14th · Anywhere dark; the radiant near Castor and Pollux climbs high in the east

  At its best the shower can reach roughly 150 an hour for one watcher beneath a flawless, moonless sky, by the International Meteor Organization’s reckoning, and this year the moon is no problem: it is a thin crescent that sets around 9 p.m. From then until dawn the sky is dark, and the meteors come fastest about 2 a.m., with Gemini nearly overhead. From a backyard you might see a quarter of that; from a dark site like Cherry Springs State Park in Potter County, far more. Wear every layer you own, lie flat on a pad or a lawn chair, and let your eyes adapt for twenty minutes.

• The Cold Moon, the closest of 2026

  Full at 8:28 p.m. Wednesday, December 23 · Rising in the northeast at sunset

  Perigee, when the moon swings closest to us, comes a mere seven hours or so after the moment of full, so this is the biggest-looking full moon of 2026. EarthSky and the BBC’s Sky at Night both list it as the year’s last supermoon. Watch it rise behind bare trees on the evening of the 23rd; on Christmas Eve it is still nearly full. On the evening of the solstice the swelling moon slides just past the Pleiades, so look for the cluster through binoculars before the glare wins.

• Planets: Venus at dawn, Saturn at dusk

  All month · Southeast before sunrise; south and southwest after sunset

  Venus blazes in the southeast before dawn and keeps gaining height until January 3, when it stands farthest from the sun. Early on Friday, December 4, the thin moon, Spica and Venus form a short line low in the southeast, with the star in the middle; the next morning the moon has slipped nearer the planet. Mars and Jupiter share Leo before dawn, and by Christmas week Jupiter is already up by mid-evening. After dusk, Saturn alone holds the southern sky. The comet that sheds the Taurid meteors, 2P/Encke, starts its brightening this month, but it will not reach binocular range until late January.

What can families do outside in Pennsylvania in December?

Safety notes for December in Pennsylvania