What to look for in nature in West Virginia this January

Where can you see bald eagles in West Virginia in January?

• The winter eagle survey around Bluestone Lake

  Annual, usually on a Saturday in the second week of January, roughly 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; the 2027 date has not been announced · Bluestone Lake and the New and Greenbrier rivers around Hinton in Summers County, with spotters in Monroe, Raleigh, Mercer and Greenbrier counties

  For more than twenty years, the Eagle Brigade of Southern West Virginia (the Three Rivers Avian Center, the Bibbee Nature Club and the Hanging Rock observatory crew) has spread volunteers along the rivers and lake shores near Hinton for a few hours of counting. When the survey started, its organizer says, spotters felt lucky to find a single eagle. The 2024 count found 42 bald eagles and one golden; on January 10, 2026, the 21st survey's 37 volunteers tallied 30 bald eagles, 20 of them adults. The group also runs an early spring count; in 2025 it fell on March 1. Newcomers are welcome and are paired with experienced counters: bring binoculars, a folding chair, lunch and far more layers than you think you need. Contact the Three Rivers Avian Center for the 2027 date.

• Eagles on the Ohio River islands

  December through February · Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge, from the Northern Panhandle down to the Mid-Ohio Valley; Middle Island at St. Marys is open to visitors

  The refuge protects 24 islands and four mainland tracts scattered along 362 miles of the upper Ohio, and most of its land is in West Virginia. Its wildlife-watching page says winter eagles are most often seen around Broadback, Neal and Grandview islands, and ducks gather on the river and its backwaters whenever smaller waters freeze. Middle Island, joined to St. Marys by a bridge, has more than 3.5 miles of hiking trails and a wildlife observation blind, and with the leaves gone you can see clear across the back channel. The refuge visitor center near Williamstown has two short trails, about 1.2 and 0.7 miles.

• Pairs back at the nest

  Nesting usually starts in January or February; eggs hatch after about 35 days · Big trees beside rivers and lakes, especially along the South Branch of the Potomac, the Ohio, Kanawha and Greenbrier

  The DNR notes that bald eagles in West Virginia usually begin nesting in January or February, often reusing a nest that grows a little every year. The state's first known nest, found along the South Branch in 1981, had reached 5.25 feet across and 2.75 feet deep by 1984. Both adults take turns warming the eggs, usually two of them. Should you come across a nest, keep well back and use a scope: human presence near an occupied nest counts as harassment under state law, and the DNR asks that new nests be reported to its wildlife office.

• Ducks on the open water

  Through the cold snaps, when small ponds lock up and birds crowd onto rivers and big lakes · The Ohio and Kanawha rivers, Bluestone, Summersville, Stonewall Jackson and Burnsville lakes, and the Potomac in the Eastern Panhandle

  When ice closes the ponds, waterfowl crowd onto whatever water stays open, which is also where the eagles hunt. The DNR's 2026–27 duck rules hint at the variety, setting limits for mergansers, scaup, canvasbacks, redheads, pintails and sea ducks. Look for the white sides of common mergansers in the riffles, rafts of diving ducks far out on the reservoirs, and little black-and-white buffleheads that dive and surface somewhere else.

When are black bear cubs born in West Virginia?

• Birth in the den

  Cubs born in January or February; they leave the den in April or May · Rock crevices, hollow trees, brush piles and dug-out hollows, mostly in the mountain counties

  Black bears have a two-step pregnancy. Mating happens in early summer, yet the embryo stays unattached until fall and implants only if the female has stored enough fat. BearWise, the outreach program run by the state wildlife agencies, says cubs arrive in January or February weighing under a pound, less than a hundred-and-fiftieth of their mother's weight. Two or three is usual, though a litter can be anywhere from one to six. They are nearly naked and blind, and they purr and hum as they nurse on milk rich in fat. Over roughly thirteen weeks in the den, each one gains four to eight pounds while the mother eats nothing at all. Each spring, WVDNR biologists visit some of these dens to weigh and measure the cubs and check that the population is staying healthy.

What animal tracks can you find in the snow in West Virginia in January?

• Red foxes in courtship

  Mating calls and paired trails build through January and February · Farm fields, pasture edges, golf courses and suburban backyards statewide

  Red foxes prefer open country, fields, brushy edges and farmland, the DNR's magazine notes, while gray foxes stay in the woods and are the only American members of the dog family that can climb trees. Late winter is their courting season; by February, a Nature Conservancy writer notes, red foxes are either mating or about to start. The same writer describes the vixen's call as a hoarse, piercing scream that can frighten a listener who does not know what it is; you will hear it most on cold, still nights. Fox prints are small and neat, about the size of a cat's but with claw marks, set almost in a single line, and a pair traveling together leaves two trails that wander side by side. Where the line stops at a small crater, a fox has pounced on a mouse it heard moving under the snow.

• Bobcats and coyotes

  All winter · Woods, rocky slopes and reclaimed mine land statewide; coyotes everywhere from farmland to town edges

  A bobcat's print is round, with no claw marks, because the claws are pulled in like a house cat's. Coyote prints are larger and more oval than a fox's, with the two middle toes pushed forward. Coyotes are newcomers: WVU Extension says the first one recorded in West Virginia turned up in the 1970s.

• Mice and the world under the snow

  Whenever snow lies for more than a day · Field edges, meadows and woodland floors; the Canaan Valley refuge is a good place to look

  The tiniest trails belong to deer mice and voles: paired dots with a thin line where the tail drags, running from one grass stem to the next and then vanishing down a hole. Beneath the snow, in the narrow gap between the snowpack and the ground, the air holds near freezing even when the surface is far colder, and small mammals spend the winter there, feeding and moving out of sight of the owls. Refuge staff in Canaan Valley have photographed deer mouse trails in fresh powder that look like a line of stitching across the snow.

Where can you ski or snowshoe through wildlife country in West Virginia in January?

• Ski and snowshoe the refuge trails

  Whenever the snow allows, usually from late December into March · Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, between Davis and Canaan Valley Resort

  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opens every refuge trail to cross-country skiing except the Freeland Boardwalk, and grooms some of the Beall trails in good snow years; the refuge's Facebook page posts grooming updates. The refuge's trail map runs from the short, flat Freeland Boardwalk and the Beall loops through old fields to steeper routes that climb through the woods. Watch for white-tailed deer, cottontails, snowshoe hares, wild turkeys, songbirds and, over the open wetlands, rough-legged hawks down from the Arctic tundra, which hover on beating wings over one spot like a big kestrel. Report any you find to eBird.

How can you identify West Virginia trees in winter?

• Sycamore, the ghost of the river bottoms

  Bright all winter, most striking against a gray sky · Stream banks and floodplains statewide, the bigger the river the bigger the trees

  The forestry guide describes sycamore bark as brown at first but soon mottled, flaking off in patches to expose cream and white underneath. On a winter day the upper limbs look almost white, so you can follow the course of a creek across a valley just by the line of pale treetops.

• Beech, smooth and gray

  All year; pale leaves often hang on young trees all winter · Moist slopes and coves throughout the state

  Beech bark is thin, smooth and light blue-gray, and according to the forestry guide it does not change as the tree ages, so an old trunk looks much like a young one. Look also for the long, sharply pointed, cigar-shaped buds at the twig tips, among the easiest buds in the woods to name.

• Shagbark hickory and black cherry

  All year · Upland oak-hickory woods (shagbark); old fields and mixed hardwoods (black cherry)

  Shagbark's gray bark breaks into long, thin plates that curve away from the trunk at both ends, which gives the shaggy look in the name. Black cherry, a prized timber tree in West Virginia, starts out with smooth, reddish-brown bark marked by short horizontal lines and later turns into small, black, flaky plates with turned-up edges.

• Yellow-poplar and sugar maple

  All year · Coves and lower slopes (yellow-poplar); rich, moist uplands (sugar maple, the state tree)

  Young yellow-poplar bark is smooth and greenish with small white spots, and with age it breaks into long, rounded ridges separated by ashy-gray furrows, on tall, unusually straight trunks. Sugar maple bark is gray and on old trees deeply furrowed into long, thick, irregular plates.

What is happening in West Virginia's trout streams in January?

• The first trout stockings of the year

  Select waters from early January, more each week in February and March · Stocked streams and lakes statewide; in January 2026 the list included Spruce Knob Lake, Shavers Fork, the South Branch, Cranberry River, Greenbrier River and Hurricane Reservoir

  The DNR's hatchery program manager has explained that stocking starts in January on select waters and then speeds up through February and March. In the first full week of January 2026, the agency stocked 46 lakes and streams. The state raises all four of its stocked trout, rainbow, golden, brook and brown, and the golden rainbow is a West Virginia original: the DNR traces it to a single yellow-mottled fish a biologist spotted among the rainbows at the Petersburg hatchery in 1955. Anglers 15 and older need a 2027 fishing license and a trout stamp, and the DNR posts daily stocking reports on its website and on its fishing hotline.

• Winter stoneflies on the snow

  Mild winter afternoons, when snow lies along the stream · Riffles and the snow along clean, fast streams

  On a sunny winter afternoon, look along a snowy stream bank for small, dark, slender insects walking on the snow with their wings folded flat. These are winter stoneflies, often called snowflies. The Forest Preserve District of Will County, in Illinois, explains that their young live in the streambed, sometimes for as long as three years, before the adults come out in the cold months to mate; a male drums his abdomen on a perch or the ground to call a female. Because the nymphs need clean, well-oxygenated water, finding them is a good sign for the stream.

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

How much daylight does West Virginia gain in January?

What can you see in West Virginia's night sky in January 2027?

• The Quadrantid meteor shower

  Peak on the night of Sunday, January 3, into the dawn of Monday, January 4 · Northeastern sky; the radiant, between the Big Dipper's handle and Boötes, climbs higher after midnight

  Quadrantid peaks are short, roughly six hours long, and 2027's falls during North American darkness. The American Meteor Society's prediction is about 10:30 p.m. on January 3, and EarthSky's is 12:47 a.m. on January 4. Because the radiant starts out near the northern horizon and rises toward morning, the strongest showing here should be in the last dark hours before Monday's sunrise. The waning crescent moon, only about a sixth lit, comes up late and does little harm. Under a truly dark sky, expect perhaps a few dozen meteors per hour near the peak, fewer elsewhere. Pack a thermos and a sleeping bag to sit in: it will be the frostiest hour.

• Earth at perihelion

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

  Earth is closest to the sun for the year, about 91.4 million miles away. It is cold anyway: the seasons come from the tilt of Earth's axis, not the distance, and in January the Northern Hemisphere is tipped away, so the sun stays low and the days stay short.

• Venus at its highest in the morning

  Greatest elongation on Sunday, January 3; bright all month · Southeast before dawn

  Sunday the 3rd is the morning Venus pulls farthest from the glare, 47 degrees by the almanac's reckoning, and it blazes over the southeastern ridges before sunrise all month. In a small telescope it looks like a tiny half-moon. Ringed Saturn, meanwhile, slides toward the southwestern ridgelines a bit earlier each evening. Mercury joins the dusk sky as January closes, a small spark low in the west-southwest a half hour or more after the sun goes down; its best evening showing of the winter comes in early February.

• The Wolf Moon, the closest full moon of 2027

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

  The moon passes perigee, its nearest point, roughly 14.5 hours ahead of the full phase, which makes January's full moon the year's biggest supermoon, about 222,229 miles away. On the night of the 21st it climbs high across the south, because a winter full moon follows the path the sun takes in summer, and on fresh snow it gives enough light to walk a field without a flashlight. Jupiter, the brightest point of light in the east that weekend, sits just beside the moon when it comes up over the hills on the 23rd. Track every phase on our moon phase calendar.

What can West Virginia families do outdoors in January?

Safety notes for January in West Virginia