What to look for in nature in Virginia this January

When do bald eagles lay eggs in Virginia?

• Courtship flights and the first eggs

  Courtship late December to mid-January; eggs from mid-January to late March · Tidal rivers statewide, with the James, Rappahannock and Potomac the strongholds

  The Center for Conservation Biology, which has studied James River eagles for decades, describes the sequence on that river: nest building picks up in October, courtship runs from late December through mid-January, and most pairs have eggs by mid-February. Laying dates differ by about five days between the James and the Potomac. The Department of Wildlife Resources’ guidelines for landowners give a wider window, mid-January to late March, and note that courtship flights are seen most often in January and February. Look for two adults soaring close together, locking talons or tumbling, and for one bird carrying fine grass or corn husks: eagles line the bowl with soft material before the eggs come.

  Most clutches hold one to three eggs, and incubation lasts about 33 to 35 days, sometimes up to 40, so the first chicks are due around early March. When you find a nest, stay well back: a bird flushed off eggs on a 20-degree morning lets them cool fast.

• Northern eagles on open water

  January and February · The Potomac at Mason Neck, the lower James and other big tidal rivers

  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notes that in January and February eagles and waterfowl from the north feed along the Potomac at Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge, where the river stays clear of ice. That refuge, set aside in 1969, was the first in the country created for bald eagles, when fewer than 500 nesting pairs remained in the lower 48 states. Today the resident pairs there rebuild nests, mate and lay eggs on the same stretch of shore where the wintering birds roost.

When do great horned owls nest in Virginia?

• Great horned owls on borrowed nests

  On nests by January and February; a few wait until March · Woodlots beside hayfields and pastures, river bottoms, large suburban parks

  Two experienced nest-finders, writing on DWR’s blog for the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas about rural northwestern Virginia, explain how: drive farm roads after leaf fall and scan the woodlot edges for the gray, flat-topped stick nests of red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks (not the brown, leafy balls that squirrels build). By January and February most great horned owls have taken over one of these, and the giveaway is a pair of feathery ear tufts sticking up above the rim. Overcast days make the silhouettes easier to pick out against the sky.

  The Virginia Department of Forestry adds that the owls line their borrowed nests with fresh down, which helps keep the eggs warm in the coldest weeks of the year. Eggs take roughly a month to hatch, so the downy owlets appear while it is still winter.

• Barred owls calling in the swamps

  All winter, loudest on calm nights · Bottomland forest, swamps and river corridors, from the Great Dismal Swamp to the Shenandoah

  Pairs call back and forth after dark, sometimes breaking into a cackling duet of whoops and gurgles. Stand by a creek at dusk and listen for the rhythmic phrase birders write as who cooks for you.

• Whitewash and pellets

  Any winter day · Under conifers and big hollow trees

  In daylight, owls give themselves away by what lies below the roost: white streaks on the bark and the ground, and gray pellets of fur and small bones. Crows or jays scolding one spot in a pine often mark a roosting owl. Keep visits short, and never play recorded calls near a nest.

Can you see seals and whales in Virginia in winter?

• Harbor seals on the Bridge-Tunnel rocks

  Mid-November to April · The four rock islands of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and a handful of haul-outs on the Eastern Shore barrier islands

  Navy-funded marine mammal surveys have counted seals at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and on the Eastern Shore every winter since 2014. The surveys record seals from mid-November to April.

  Photo-identification shows how faithful they are: by January 2025 the project had cataloged 198 individual harbor seals, just over half of them seen on more than one survey day and some across six or seven winters, with an average of about 150 seals estimated for the eight seasons from 2015 to 2023. A few gray seals turn up too. Counts on a given day vary a lot: the best day of the first half of the 2024–25 season found 12 at the Bridge-Tunnel and 33 on the Eastern Shore, and infrared cameras recorded upwards of 30 hauling out overnight.

• Young humpback whales off Virginia Beach

  Late fall through winter · Nearshore waters off the Oceanfront and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay

  Navy-funded survey biologists report that the humpbacks seen in nearshore Virginia waters are younger animals, while mature whales seem to use the waters farther offshore as a stopover. In November 2023 they watched a group of five humpbacks bubble-net feeding a couple of miles from where the menhaden fleet was fishing; all five were whales already known from earlier years, and a sixth, a juvenile seen the same day, was new to the catalog. Each humpback is recognized by the black-and-white pattern under its tail, and the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center Foundation was tasked with building a shared photo-identification catalog of humpbacks for the Mid-Atlantic.

  The Aquarium’s winter whale-watching boat tours begin December 16 and leave from its dock in Virginia Beach; sightings are never guaranteed and trips depend on the weather.

• If you find a seal on the beach

  Any winter day · Ocean and Bay beaches from Virginia Beach to Chincoteague

  A seal resting on the sand is usually healthy. NOAA Fisheries’ guideline is 50 yards, roughly half the length of a football field, and to keep dogs leashed; if it stares, fidgets or heads for the water, you are too close. Report one that looks hurt or tangled to the Virginia Aquarium’s stranding response team rather than approaching it.

Where do tundra swans spend January in Virginia?

• Tundra swans in the Great Marsh

  October through March · Mason Neck on the Potomac, Back Bay, Chincoteague and other tidal marshes

  Tundra swans nest on the tundra from Alaska’s North Slope to Hudson Bay and spend the winter in the Mid-Atlantic. At Mason Neck they gather in the 207-acre Great Marsh, one of the last big stands of wild rice in the region, and on Belmont Bay. They are vocal birds, with a high, soft, almost musical call that carries across the marsh on a still morning.

  Mason Neck State Park’s staff note the swans may begin leaving as early as February, so January is the surest month.

• The last days of the duck season

  Ducks, mergansers, coots and snipe to January 31; brant January 15 to 31 · Statewide, especially tidal rivers and the Bay

  Diving ducks, buffleheads and mergansers crowd the open water of the tidal rivers until the season’s close at the end of the month, and Canada geese of the resident population may be hunted until February 21 and snow geese until March 10. If you birdwatch from a public landing on a weekday morning, expect to share it with hunters; on refuges, check the hunt calendar first.

• When the creeks freeze

  During cold snaps · Shallow creeks, millponds and marsh guts

  A hard freeze squeezes ducks into the last open water at creek mouths and below spillways, with eagles close behind; one scan from a bridge can then show a dozen species.

Which Virginia animals have their young in midwinter?

• Black bear cubs born in the den

  Early January to mid-February · In dens across most of the state, from the mountains to the Great Dismal Swamp

  DWR says Virginia’s black bears enter their dens anywhere from October to January, depending on weather and food, and cubs are born from early January to mid-February. A newborn cub weighs 6 to 12 ounces, less than a pound, and litters range from one to four. The mother does not eat, drink or pass waste while denned, yet nurses the cubs until they all emerge between mid-March and early May. Dens can be hollow trees, rock crevices, brush piles or, now and then, a culvert or a woodpile lean-to; if you stumble on one, leave quietly.

• Red foxes pairing up

  Breeding January and February · Farmland, suburbs and woodland edges statewide

  DWR puts the red fox breeding season in Virginia at January to February. The female carries her kits for 51 to 53 days, so a litter of about five arrives in a den in spring. After a January snow you may find two trails running together where a pair has been hunting side by side. Most of a red fox’s diet is rabbits and mice, and a fox listening for voles under the snow and then pouncing nose-first is worth a long, still wait.

• Gray foxes barking at night

  Breeding January to April, peaking in February · Upland woods, pines and swamp edges

  The gray fox climbs trees to escape danger and is mostly nocturnal. Its common calls are barks, yaps and yips, heard most in the breeding season, which in Virginia runs from January to April with a peak in February.

Is anything blooming in Virginia in January?

• Skunk cabbage, the first wildflower

  Some in January in mild spells; more widely in February · Seeps, springs and wet, shaded creek bottoms, mostly in the northern and western Piedmont and the mountains

  The Virginia Outdoors Foundation reports finding skunk cabbage in flower in the second week of January at its Bull Run Mountains preserve, and the Department of Forestry places the start of bloom in early to mid-February. Either way it is the earliest native bloom of the year. Look for a mottled maroon-and-green hood, a few inches tall, poking up through the mud or snow where groundwater seeps out at the foot of a wooded slope.

  Inside the hood, a knob covered in tiny flowers burns stored starch and holds itself at roughly 59 to 73 °F, enough to melt the snow around it. The warmth and the faint smell of decay draw flies, gnats and carrion beetles, the plant’s first pollinators of the year. The big cabbage-like leaves come much later in spring.

• Winter twigs and buds

  All winter · Any woodlot, park or street tree

  Virginia Tech’s dendrology program calls twigs more distinctive than leaves. Start with arrangement: maples, ashes, dogwoods and horse-chestnuts have opposite buds, and most everything else alternates. Then look closer. Black walnut leaf scars look like monkey faces and its pith is chambered, white oak clusters several buds at the twig tip, yellow-poplar’s bud is a flattened duck bill of just two scales, and winged elm wears corky ridges. A hand lens and a pocketknife (to slice a twig lengthwise for the pith) are all you need.

• Spotted lanternfly egg masses

  Laid from September; hatching in spring · More than half of Virginia’s localities, thickest in the north; on trees, stone, vehicles and outdoor furniture

  This invasive planthopper from Asia was first detected in Winchester in January 2018, and the state agriculture department now reports it in more than half of Virginia’s counties and independent cities. It spends the winter as eggs, laid on smooth surfaces such as bark, stone, picnic tables and trailers in masses of 30 to 50 that look like a smear of dried mud. Tree-of-heaven is its favorite host. Scrape any you find into a bag or jar of soapy water or rubbing alcohol; Fairfax and Loudoun counties no longer need reports because the insect is established there.

How much daylight does Virginia gain in January?

How cold and snowy is January in Virginia, and what could El Niño do?

What is in Virginia’s night sky in January 2027?

• The Quadrantids

  Night of Sunday, January 3, into Monday, January 4 · Anywhere dark; the radiant, in the region of Boötes and Draco, climbs in the northeast after midnight

  The Quadrantid maximum is brief, about six hours. For 2027 the American Meteor Society predicts it around 10:30 p.m. on the 3rd and EarthSky around 12:47 a.m. on the 4th, and both land in Virginia’s nighttime. With the radiant low at bedtime and high by 5 a.m., Monday’s predawn hours ought to deliver the most. Under a dark rural sky, expect dozens per hour at best; under city lights, a handful. The waning crescent Moon is only about a sixth lit and rises late, so it barely interferes. The shower’s active window runs from December 28 to January 12.

• Earth at perihelion

  Saturday, January 2, 9:33 p.m. · Everywhere

  Earth reaches the closest point of its orbit to the Sun, about 91.4 million miles away, in the depth of the Northern Hemisphere’s winter. Winter is about the angle of sunlight, not distance: the low January sun spreads its light thin, which matters far more than being a few percent closer.

• Venus at greatest elongation

  Sunday, January 3, and all month before sunrise · Southeast sky before dawn

  Sunday the 3rd brings Venus’s greatest western elongation, 47 degrees, its widest angle of this morning apparition, shining at about magnitude −4.3 and looking half-lit through a small telescope. It stays the brightest point in the predawn sky through the spring.

• The Wolf Moon, the closest full moon of 2027

  Full at 7:17 a.m. Friday, January 22; best seen the night of the 21st · Rising in the east-northeast at dusk on the 21st

  Perigee comes late on the afternoon of the 21st, under 15 hours ahead of the full instant, and the full Moon is then 222,229 miles off, the nearest of 2027; every almanac we checked calls it a supermoon. Since the full instant comes at about sunrise here, plan on Thursday evening: the Moon comes up around dusk and stays up until dawn, lighting any snow on the ground. Jupiter sits close beside the Moon after dark on Saturday the 23rd.

• Mercury low in the evening

  Last days of January into early February · Low in the west-southwest, 30 to 45 minutes after sunset

  Mercury climbs toward its best evening showing of the winter, reaching its greatest angle from the Sun on February 3. You need an open view to the west; it shows as an unblinking pinpoint just above the glow.

What can Virginia families do outdoors in January 2027?

Safety notes for January in Virginia