What to look for in nature in Tennessee this February

When do the sandhill cranes leave Tennessee?

• Last weeks at the Hiwassee platform

  Early and mid-February, before the flock disperses · Hiwassee Refuge viewing platform north of Birchwood, Meigs County (Eastern time)

  TWRA notes that the cranes gather near the Watchable Wildlife platform from mid-October through February and sometimes linger into March. The refuge itself stays closed to all entry until the end of February, but the platform is open. Listen for paired birds standing side by side and calling in a tight, synchronized duet, which TWRA calls unison calling; it is one of the surest signs that a pair is together and getting ready for the breeding season ahead.

• Hop-In Refuge, the western flock

  Through the end of February · South Fork of the Obion River near Kenton, Obion County (Central time)

  TWRA describes this 650-acre refuge, whose crop fields are flooded each winter, as home to the largest wintering crane population in West Tennessee and possibly more than 50,000 waterfowl. It is closed to all forms of use and trespass from November 1 through the last day of February, so scan the fields from public roads only, pull fully off the pavement, and never block a gate or farm lane.

• Strings of cranes overhead

  Mild days, mid-February into March · A corridor from Pickett and Clay counties toward Bradley and Monroe counties, and anywhere else in the state

  Migrating cranes often fly too high to see at first. Listen for a rolling, wooden bugle that TWRA says carries more than a mile, then search the sky for long, wavering lines of birds flying with necks stretched straight out. Note the date, the time and the direction of travel.

Are bald eagles and hawks nesting in Tennessee in February?

• Bald eagles on eggs

  Egg-laying peaks in late February · Big trees near reservoirs and rivers statewide

  Pairs stay together for years and return to the same nest, adding material each season; TWRA says an old nest can reach 8 feet across, 12 feet deep and several tons. The usual clutch is two eggs, sometimes one or three, and both parents share 34 to 36 days of incubation, so eggs laid this month should hatch around the turn of March into April. An adult lying low in the nest on a raw day is very likely incubating. Watch from far away, with a scope, and leave quickly if the birds stand up or call at you.

• The last big eagle weeks at Reelfoot

  Daily van tours through February · Reelfoot Lake State Park and Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge, Lake and Obion counties (Central time)

  The state park says its eagle tours run every day in January and February and highlight more than 200 migrating eagles wintering around the lake. Book ahead (the park office is 731-253-9652). The park has also posted notice of tornado repairs at its Blue Bank and Eagle Basin day-use areas, with intermittent closures while the work goes on and completion expected in February 2027, and Eagle Basin itself has been closed since June 2026 until further notice, so ask which areas are open before you go.

• Red-shouldered hawks calling over the bottoms

  January and February · Wooded creek bottoms, swamps and riverside woods

  TWRA says pairs return to their territories in these two months and soar in circles high overhead, calling loudly. The agency also warns that blue jays imitate the call remarkably well, so look up before you write one down. The nest is built below the canopy, in a main fork of a tall hardwood near water.

• Red-tailed hawk sky dances

  Late winter · Pastures, roadsides and open country with scattered big trees

  TWRA describes courting red-tails diving and rolling together in the sky, sometimes locking talons and tumbling toward the ground before breaking apart. Northern birds swell the population from November through March, so February has plenty of hawks on fence posts and power poles. Look for the pale chest crossed by a dark belly band and, on adults, the reddish, unbarred tail.

When do spring peepers start calling in Tennessee?

• Spring peeper

  Mild nights from February on · Woodlands and brushy edges near fishless ponds and pools, in every part of the state

  TWRA calls the peeper common and widespread, a frog of 0.7 to 1.2 inches with an often imperfect dark X on its back. A female lays 800 to 1,000 eggs, singly or in twos and threes, on underwater plants, and they hatch in two to three days. One male sounds like a high, clear whistle; a whole pond of them sounds like sleigh bells. TWRA notes peepers have been heard calling at 6,300 feet in the Smokies.

• Mountain chorus frog

  February rains · The Cumberland Plateau, the Cumberland Mountains and the far northeast and southeast corners of the Blue Ridge

  This plateau specialist lives in three separate patches of the state and, TWRA says, often far from water on forested hilltops. It breeds in roadside ditches, pools beside streams and even rain-filled tire ruts on gravel mountain roads. Its back markings can look like a peeper’s X, but TWRA says a well-defined dark triangle between the eyes usually gives it away.

• American toads, then leopard frogs

  Toads usually by late February; leopard frogs as the nights warm · Farm ponds, sloughs and creek edges statewide, except high in the eastern mountains

  The American toad’s long, musical trill is usually heard by late February, the ORNL guide says, while the harsher waah of the Fowler’s toad seldom starts before late March. The southern leopard frog’s call, as TWRA puts it, sounds much like a hand rubbed over a balloon, a run of clucks and groans, and its females lay globular masses of 3,000 to 5,000 eggs.

Which spring birds come back to Tennessee first?

• Purple martin scouts

  The end of February into early March · Martin houses and gourd racks near water and open ground, in towns and on farms

  In eastern North America these big swallows nest almost entirely in housing that people put up, a habit TWRA traces to the Choctaw and Chickasaw, who hung hollow gourds near their homes. Starlings and house sparrows compete for the same cavities, and TWRA says colonies often need people to manage them for that reason.

• Great blue herons on their colonies

  Warm days from January, egg-laying peak about mid-March · Heronries on islands and in wooded swamps near lakes and rivers

  TWRA says great blue herons begin reoccupying nest sites on warm days as early as January. A colony can hold a few nests or several hundred, and the bare trees of February make the big stick platforms easy to count. The agency notes the number of colonies and birds in Tennessee has grown steadily since the 1980s.

• Bluebirds house-hunting

  February courtship, first eggs commonly in March · Fields, yards, cemeteries and open woods with nest boxes or old woodpecker holes

  A male bluebird courts by carrying nest material into a cavity and back out again. TWRA says first clutches are commonly laid in March, so February is the time to put up or clean boxes. On very cold nights bluebirds pile into one box for warmth; the agency mentions 8 to 12 birds sharing a single box.

• Red-winged blackbirds and robins

  Song picks up in late winter · Marshes, wet fields and farm ponds; lawns and woods edges

  TWRA calls the male red-wing’s gurgling kon-ke-ree a sure sign that spring is on the way, though males do not defend territories in earnest until March. TWRA says the winter roosts in West and Middle Tennessee number in the thousands, and such roosts can swell to several million birds. Robins gather in big flocks over the winter, and the agency says many start nesting in late winter, although peak egg-laying waits until mid-April.

What are the first wildflowers to bloom in Tennessee?

• Red maple in flower

  February into April · Swamps, bottomlands, ridges and yards statewide

  Use binoculars on the twig tips. The flowers are tiny but crowded together, so a tree in bloom looks as if it has been lightly dusted with red, and it is easy to spot from a car window along a creek.

• Spring beauty

  Tennessee State Parks lists January through May · Parks where it has been found include Meeman-Shelby, Long Hunter, David Crockett, Port Royal, Bledsoe Creek, Henry Horton, Booker T. Washington, Old Stone Fort and Cove Lake state parks

  Small pink or white flowers with darker pink stripes, growing in low clusters close to the ground. State Parks notes the plant grows from a small tuber that was once eaten for its chestnut-like taste. Please leave them in the ground.

• White trout lily

  State Parks gives February through April · Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Wilson County (Central time)

  One of the first woodland flowers, with a white bloom that hangs face-down to protect its nectar and pollen. The park system calls it hard to find in Tennessee, which makes a February sighting at Cedars of Lebanon worth noting in iNaturalist, as State Parks asks visitors to do.

What are Tennessee’s mammals doing in February?

• Bear cubs born in the den

  Late January and early February · Mostly East Tennessee, where TWRA says bears are regularly seen

  TWRA puts the births at the end of January or beginning of February. Cubs weigh only ounces and are born blind and without fur. They grow fast in the den and leave it with their mother around April, weighing over five pounds. The Smokies park adds that its bears are not true hibernators and may briefly leave the den, so a February bear on a sunny ridge is not out of the question.

• Groundhogs, real and forecast

  Groundhog Day is Tuesday, February 2 · Fencerows, field borders and stream banks statewide

  The woodchuck, the largest member of the squirrel family, digs burrow systems with a separate den for hibernating, and in February most are still in it. TWRA says breeding follows the end of hibernation in early spring and young are born usually in early May. Whatever any groundhog sees on the 2nd, the real halfway point of astronomical winter comes on February 3 and 4 this year.

• Elk dropping their antlers

  February and March · North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area, Campbell County (Eastern time)

  TWRA says bulls typically shed their antlers between February and March. The agency’s Hatfield Knob viewing tower, rebuilt in 2022 to be wheelchair accessible, draws about 16,000 visitors a year, and a live elk camera runs from the same spot. Elk are most active in the mornings and evenings and, in winter, move in mixed groups of cows and bulls, so plan a tower visit for first or last light.

Is February snowier than January in Tennessee?

• Thunderstorms return

  Warm, humid days ahead of a cold front · Statewide; West and Middle Tennessee most often

  February warm spells can turn violent. On February 5, 2008, the day of the Super Tuesday primaries, the Memphis weather office surveyed 13 tornadoes in its Tennessee counties alone, including an EF-4 that struck Union University north of Jackson around 7:00 p.m. Central. Later that night an EF3 tracked 50.32 miles from Sumner County through Trousdale and Macon counties into Kentucky, killing 22 people; the Nashville office says 13 of them died in Macon County, most near Lafayette. Treat a mild, muggy February afternoon with a storm watch as seriously as one in April.

• A very strong El Niño and February

  Late winter 2027 · Statewide

  In the Climate Prediction Center’s September 10, 2026, discussion, the forecasters’ confidence in a very strong El Niño peaking during the 2026–27 cold season stood above 90 percent. One recent very strong event came in 2015–16, and the Memphis weather office’s summary of that February is a useful snapshot: the month ran warmer and generally drier than normal across the Mid-South, Memphis averaged 48.1 °F (2.6 degrees above normal), and Jackson recorded only a trace of snow. The office called that whole winter much warmer and drier than normal. A single season proves nothing about the next one. For NOAA’s current thinking on February, see the latest three-month and monthly outlook maps; a new set appears every month.

How much daylight does Tennessee gain in February?

What can you see in Tennessee’s night sky in February 2027?

• Mercury low in the west

  Late January to about February 10; best around February 3 · West-southwest, 30 to 45 minutes after sunset

  The innermost planet hits its widest evening separation, about 18 degrees, near midnight Central between February 2 and 3. Any hilltop or lakeshore with a clear west-southwest skyline will do; the planet looks like a lone, unwinking star in the afterglow. A slim crescent moon, just over a day old, joins it on the evening of Sunday the 7th; binoculars help.

• Jupiter at opposition

  Wednesday, February 10 · Rising in the east at sunset, high in the south around midnight

  Jupiter lines up opposite the sun at 6:21 p.m. Central (7:21 p.m. Eastern) on the 10th, shining at magnitude -2.5 in Leo. Only the moon outshines it in the evening sky, and it is up from sunset until sunrise.

• Mars at opposition

  Friday, February 19, closest on February 20 · East in the evening, near Jupiter in Leo

  Opposition comes on Friday morning, and on Saturday the red planet makes its nearest pass, some 63 million miles from Tennessee backyards. Mars sits close to aphelion, its outermost swing from the sun, so Tennessee gets a modest showing: a steady, rust-colored light around magnitude -1.2 rather than a glaring one. Even so, Mars will not come nearer to us again before 2029.

• The Snow Moon and a faint penumbral eclipse

  Evening of Saturday, February 20 · Rising in the east around sunset

  The moon slips through Earth’s pale outer shadow from 3:12 to 7:13 p.m. Central (4:12 to 8:13 p.m. Eastern), deepest at 5:13 p.m. Central (6:13 p.m. Eastern). Tennessee sees only the moon rising into this, low in bright twilight: in the Eastern zone the moon comes up around the middle of the eclipse, and in the Central zone just after it. Sharp eyes might catch a faint dusky tint along one side of the moon; casual watchers will see an ordinary full moon. Whether to call it a supermoon is a matter of definition, because the moon was nearest Earth about 40 hours earlier, and almanacs split on it. Look also for Jupiter, Mars and Regulus clustered around the moon that evening; a night earlier, from the evening of Friday the 19th, the moon glides very near Jupiter.

What can Tennessee families do outdoors in February 2027?

Safety notes for February in Tennessee