What to look for in nature in South Dakota this December

When is the Christmas Bird Count in South Dakota, and how do you join?

• Sioux Falls count

  Saturday, December 19, 2026 · The Sioux Falls count circle, city parks, the Big Sioux greenway and surrounding farmland

  The South Dakota Ornithologists’ Union lists the Sioux Falls count on its calendar for December 19. No contact is posted with the listing, so reach the organizers through the SDOU mailing list or Audubon’s map.

• Canton count

  Saturday, January 2, 2027 · Around Canton, near Newton Hills State Park

  The second count on the SDOU calendar falls just after New Year’s. The Big Sioux valley’s bur oak woods give it woodpeckers and nuthatches that open-prairie counts miss.

• Finding other circles, or counting from home

  December 14 to January 5 · Statewide; Audubon’s online circle finder

  Other South Dakota circles may not appear on the SDOU calendar, and some set their dates only in late fall. Audubon’s circle finder shows each one with its compiler’s contact. You can join a field team for a day outdoors, or, if you live inside a circle, do a feeder count from home. Either way, the compiler needs to hear from you before count day.

Where can you see snowy owls and rough-legged hawks in South Dakota in winter?

• Snowy owls

  Some winters, December through March; never predictable · Fort Pierre National Grassland; around Lake Oahe where open water holds waterfowl; more often in the northern counties

  South Dakota Birds and Birding calls the snowy owl an irregular winter visitor that is never common. In some winters several turn up, in others hardly any, and the birds can appear almost anywhere. Look for a white or white-and-barred lump on a fence post, a hay bale or a rise in a stubble field, often in the middle of the day. Watch from the car; a resting owl needs its energy.

• Rough-legged hawks

  All winter · Fort Pierre National Grassland; the Presho area of Lyman County; open grassland statewide

  Rough-legs breed on the Arctic tundra and visit only for the cold months, when the same source calls them uncommon to common and sometimes present in very high densities. The name comes from feathering that runs down the legs to the feet. Watch for a large hawk hanging in one spot over a field on flapping wings, or balanced on the very tip of a slender branch; many have a dark belly and a dark mark at each wrist.

Why do great horned owls start hooting in December?

• The hooting duet

  Dusk and the hours before dawn, from December · Shelterbelts, farmsteads, river woods, city parks and cemeteries with big trees

  Male and female both hoot, and in early winter a pair often calls back and forth, the male’s voice noticeably deeper than his mate’s even though she is the bigger bird. Stand outside on a still evening just after dark and listen for a soft, low series of five or so hoots. By day, check the crotch of a big cottonwood or a dense evergreen for an ear-tufted shape, and look on the ground beneath for pellets and whitewash.

• Townsend’s solitaire in the junipers

  All winter · Year-round in the Black Hills; in winter also in shelterbelts, conifer plantings and parks elsewhere

  This slim gray thrush with a white eye ring is an uncommon permanent resident of the Black Hills and a winter visitor in the rest of the state. In winter it eats mostly juniper berries, and it will chase other birds away from its own patch of junipers, often announcing ownership with a single clear, piping note repeated from a treetop. If you find one in December, you can usually find it again in the same trees in January.

Can you cut a Christmas tree in the Black Hills, and which evergreens grow there?

• Black Hills spruce, the state tree

  All year; easiest to pick out against snow · Higher elevations, cool north-facing slopes and moist drainage bottoms in the Hills

  The legislature named the Black Hills spruce, a regional form of white spruce, the state tree in 1947, calling it native and “a tree of noble attributes.” The forest’s brochure says spruce grows high and on wetter ground, with the classic tapered shape and short needles that make stringing lights easy. Spruce needles feel square when rolled between finger and thumb, and each grows singly from a tiny woody peg on the twig. The Forest Service publishes a map showing where spruce is thick and where it is sparse.

• Ponderosa pine

  All year · Nearly everywhere in the Hills, and on the pine ridges of the northwest and Pine Ridge country

  Ponderosa is the tree that makes the Black Hills look black from a distance. Its needles are long and come in bundles of two or three, and the brochure praises its full shape. Old trees have orange bark plates that many people say smell of vanilla on a warm day.

• Rocky Mountain juniper

  All year · Lower and drier slopes in the southern and western Hills

  The shortest of the three, bluish green and full, with tiny scale-like leaves instead of needles and frosty blue berries that are really cones. Those berries are what the Townsend’s solitaires and other winter birds come for.

• Permit rules worth knowing

  Through December 31 · Most of the national forest, with exceptions

  The brochure caps trees at 20 feet, asks for stumps no taller than six inches and limbs scattered close to the ground, and requires the permit to be attached before you leave. Cutting is off limits in the Black Elk Wilderness, the Black Hills Experimental Forest near Rochford, campgrounds and picnic areas, active timber sales and other named areas, including Spearfish Canyon, the Jasper Fire area near Custer and Beaver Park near Sturgis. Stay off private land.

How do South Dakota animals get through the winter?

• Bats asleep in Jewel Cave

  October through May · Jewel Cave National Monument, west of Custer

  Ten kinds of bats live in the monument, and more than half of the cave’s hibernators are Townsend’s big-eared bats, which hang from the ceiling with their long ears curled back. The park closes the historic entrance from October through May so no one disturbs them; a bat woken in midwinter burns fat it cannot replace. The 2018 midwinter count found over 1,400 hibernating bats, but the count of winter 2023–24 found only 602. The park says white-nose syndrome, a fungus that attacks bats while they hibernate, may explain the drop, or the bats may have moved to other parts of the cave.

• Coyotes, the state animal

  All winter, mostly from dusk to dawn · Almost every habitat in the state

  The legislature made the coyote the state animal in 1949. Game, Fish and Parks notes that coyotes stay active right through the winter, rest during the day and move mostly between dusk and dawn. They hunt voles under the snow by ear, then pounce, and their yipping carries far on a calm, cold night.

• Beavers under the ice

  Once ponds freeze over · Creeks, rivers and ponds statewide

  A beaver colony, usually four to eight animals according to Game, Fish and Parks, spends the winter in its lodge or bank den with a pile of branches sunk in the water nearby. When the pond ices over, the beavers swim out under the ice to fetch sticks from that food pile and eat the bark indoors. A lodge with a thin wisp of frost rising from its top on a cold morning is occupied.

• Mountain goats on the granite

  All year · Between Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore, and from Highway 244 near Black Elk Peak south to the Needles; a few in Battle Creek and Spearfish Canyon

  Mountain goats are not native to South Dakota. The National Park Service traces the herd to six goats that Canada gave Custer State Park in 1924 and that escaped into the granite peaks; there are now more than 200. Game, Fish and Parks puts their range at more than 32,000 acres of granite outcrops between 4,000 and 7,242 feet. Look for long, shaggy white coats against gray granite; soft pads on the bottoms of their hooves grip steep rock.

• Fifty-four degrees underground

  Winter tour season, November 1 to April 24 · Wind Cave National Park, north of Hot Springs

  Wind Cave holds a steady 54 °F all year, which makes a cave tour a warm outing on a frozen day. Through the winter the park runs its Garden of Eden tour at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and its Fairgrounds tour at 1 p.m. (call ahead for the accessibility tour), with reservations on Recreation.gov from 120 days to two days ahead.

What animal tracks can you find in South Dakota snow?

• Coyote

  After any overnight snow · Field edges, fence lines, frozen creek beds

  Oval prints about the size of a large dog’s, with two claw marks at the front, set almost in a single straight line as the animal trots. A dog’s trail wanders and doubles back; a coyote usually travels with purpose.

• Pheasant, the state bird

  All winter · Cattail sloughs, shelterbelts and road ditches, mostly East River

  Three long toes pointing forward and a short one behind, in a nearly straight line, sometimes with a drag mark where a rooster’s tail brushed the snow. Where the line simply ends, look for wing marks on each side: the bird flushed. The ring-necked pheasant has been the official state bird since 1943.

• Cottontail and deer

  All winter · Yards, brush piles, river woods

  Rabbits leave groups of four prints, the two large hind prints falling in front of the smaller front ones. Deer leave split, heart-shaped prints with the point aimed the way the animal walked, and they reuse the same trails night after night, packing paths you can follow to a bedding thicket.

How much snow does South Dakota get in December, and what will El Niño change?

When is the earliest sunset in South Dakota?

What can you see in the South Dakota night sky in December?

• The Geminids

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

  The International Meteor Organization expects as many as 150 meteors an hour at the peak under ideal skies, and this year only a slim crescent moon is up, going down around 9 or 10 p.m. Rates are best near 2 a.m. Dress for the coldest hours of a December night, lie flat on a pad or reclining chair, and give it at least 20 minutes.

• The Cold Moon, the closest full moon of 2026

  Full on Wednesday, December 23, at 7:28 p.m. CST (6:28 p.m. MST) · Rising in the northeast around sunset

  Perigee, when the moon swings closest to Earth, comes about seven hours after full, so the Cold Moon will be roughly 221,700 miles away and appear slightly bigger than 2026’s other full moons, round on both the 23rd and Christmas Eve. On the solstice evening, the 21st, the waxing gibbous moon slides across or near the Pleiades, drowning out most of the cluster’s stars.

• Venus at dawn, Saturn at dusk

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

  Dazzling Venus climbs higher before sunrise all month, heading for its greatest western elongation in early January. The thin old moon, Spica and Venus make a short line at dawn on December 4, and a day later the moon sits nearer Venus. Jupiter, in Leo, rises by midevening late in the month and outshines everything but Venus, with fainter Mars nearby in the morning sky. Saturn owns the evening sky alone and by late December goes down roughly four hours after sunset.

• Ursids, then the Quadrantids

  Ursids peak December 22; Quadrantids the evening of January 3 into January 4 · The northern sky

  The modest Ursids peak on the 22nd under an almost-full moon, so expect little. The Quadrantids are better: their brief peak falls about 9:25 p.m. CST (8:25 p.m. MST) on January 3, just before a new moon, though the radiant is low in the evening, so the dark hours before dawn on January 4 may be the more practical try.

What outdoor events can South Dakota families do in December 2026?

Safety notes for December in South Dakota