What to look for in nature in Wisconsin this December

Where can you see bald eagles in Wisconsin in December?

• Sauk Prairie and the Prairie du Sac dam

  Roosts fill at some point between early December and late February · The overlook at 490 Water Street, Prairie du Sac, and the Wisconsin River through Sauk City

  Ferry Bluff Eagle Council volunteers count the birds through the winter at six to eight traditional night roosts on the lower Wisconsin River, from early December to late February. The Sauk Prairie roosts, Sugar Loaf and Black Hawk, can fill at any point in that span, but the heavy use in any one winter lasts only three to six weeks, so a hard freeze in early December can bring the crowd before Christmas. Go between 8 and 10 a.m., when eagles leave the roosts to fish, or in the two hours before dark, when they return. Farther downstream, the northern unit of Ferry Bluff State Natural Area is shut to all visitors from December 1 to March 31 to protect the roost.

• The Mississippi and the Fox

  As the backwaters freeze, and on into late winter · Below the Mississippi River locks and dams along Highway 35; the lower Fox River

  On the big rivers, eagles gather in the open tailwater under each lock and dam once the sloughs skin over. The Upper Mississippi refuge says its biggest gatherings, hundreds of birds, come around mid-March as the river ice begins to melt, so think of a December trip as a preview. Scan both banks; the young eagles, still brown, are easy to miss.

When is the Christmas Bird Count in Wisconsin, and how can you take part?

• Find a circle and its compiler

  Sign up from late November; counts run December 14 to January 5 · Audubon’s online Circle Finder

  Pick the nearest circle on Audubon’s Circle Finder map and email its compiler. Beginners are usually teamed with veterans. Anyone whose home lies inside a circle can also report a feeder tally for count day, the warmest way for families with young children to take part.

• A string of counts around Madison

  Mid-December to New Year’s Day; 2026 dates still to be posted · Dane County and its neighbors

  The Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance, formerly Madison Audubon, runs the Madison count and lists about ten others nearby. Last season they began with Waterloo on December 16, Madison and Richland Center counted on the 20th, Poynette, Mount Horeb, Baraboo and Green Lake filled the week after Christmas, and Cooksville closed the season on January 1. Check its page for the 2026 dates, not posted as of early October.

Which owls can you hear or find in Wisconsin in December?

• Great horned owls begin to court

  Duets from late December; nesting in late January and February · Woodlots, parks, cemeteries and farm windbreaks statewide

  No Wisconsin owl nests earlier. Schlitz Audubon’s raptor staff describe the courtship: the male booms a low, stuttering string of hoots, and a female nearby replies a step higher. Pairs lay one to five eggs and share incubation for up to five weeks, often in an old hawk or squirrel nest, so the calls you hear around the solstice lead straight into nesting while the snow is deep. Listen on a windless evening an hour after sunset.

• Snowy owls from the Arctic

  On winter territories through March · Large open fields, airports and the Great Lakes shores

  Big southward flights, called irruptions, follow Arctic summers with plenty of lemmings and other prey and many young raised, Schlitz Audubon explains. By December most of the owls that came south have chosen a field or stretch of shore and can often be found there day after day. Keep well back; if the owl keeps swiveling its head toward you, you are too close.

Which evergreens are native to Wisconsin, and how can you tell them apart?

• Three pines: count the needles

  Year-round · White pine nearly statewide; red and jack pine mainly in the north and the Central Sands

  Pull one bundle of needles and count. White pine is the only native pine with five, soft, blue-green and 3 to 5 inches long; the DNR calls it the largest and longest-lived tree of the region. Red (Norway) pine has two long needles, 4 to 6 inches, that break cleanly when bent double, and bark in reddish plates. Jack pine needles come in pairs too, but they are only about an inch long, twisted and sharp, and its curved cones may hang unopened for years until a fire’s heat releases the seed. It grows on sandy ground in the northern half and follows the Wisconsin River down to Iowa and Grant counties.

• Balsam fir or white spruce?

  Year-round · Northern forests, swamps and bog edges

  Roll a needle between finger and thumb: a spruce needle is four-sided and rolls, a fir needle is flat and will not. Balsam fir needles are soft and blunt, with two silvery stripes underneath, and the smooth gray bark is dotted with blisters of resin. The cones point straight up from the top branches and shed their scales on the branch, leaving bare spikes. White spruce needles are stiff and sharp, crowded on the upper side of the twig, and smell faintly unpleasant when crushed. Black spruce, the bog tree, is smaller, with half-inch needles and little cones that can stay on for years.

• Hemlock and the two cedars

  Year-round · Hemlock in the northeast quarter and on cool north slopes; white cedar in wet ground; red cedar on dry southern ridges

  Hemlock also has flat needles, short (under three-quarters of an inch), with two pale lines below and cones under an inch. Its native range is the northeastern quarter of the state, plus outlying stands on north-facing slopes in Columbia, Sauk and Vernon counties. Northern white cedar has flat sprays of tiny overlapping scales that smell sweet when crushed, and the DNR counts it among the deer’s preferred winter browse. Eastern red cedar, really a juniper, carries dark blue berry-like cones that birds eat in winter and grows on limestone ridges in the southwest and in abandoned fields.

How do Wisconsin animals survive the winter?

• Frogs frozen in the leaves

  From the first hard freezes until the spring thaw · Leaf litter on the forest floor

  Wood frogs and spring peepers simply settle into the leaves and freeze. As they cool, their bodies load up with a sugary natural antifreeze; then breathing stops, the heart stops and brain activity ceases. In spring they thaw and head for the nearest pond. Any leaf pile in a damp woodland may hold one, and turtles do something similar under pond ice, slowing their metabolism by as much as 99 percent.

• Ruffed grouse under the snow

  Whenever about a foot of soft snow lies on the ground · Aspen and birch woods, mostly in the north and center

  A grouse can fill its crop with aspen, birch, cherry or apple buds in roughly half an hour, enough to last a day or more. On bitter nights with deep, powdery snow it dives headfirst into a drift and works its way under, and its body heat soon warms the chamber several degrees above the outside air. Look for wing marks ending at a hole, or a scooped pit with droppings where a bird burst out.

• Shrews that shrink, a squirrel that sleeps

  All winter · Lawns, woods and grassy field edges

  Shrews burn food so fast that some eat two to three times their weight each day, hunting all winter in runways beneath the snow; researchers in Germany found that common shrews even shrink for the cold months, with the brain and other organs losing up to 30 percent of their size and regrowing in spring. The thirteen-lined ground squirrel is a true hibernator: about six months underground, its heart slowed from 300 beats a minute to 10.

• A larva inside a goldenrod ball

  All winter · Old fields and roadsides with dead goldenrod stems

  The round swellings on dry goldenrod stems are galls, each built around one goldenrod gall fly larva. In the cold it converts stored glycogen to glycerol and sorbitol, which keep ice from forming in its cells. Check the stems in spring for the adult fly’s exit hole.

What tracks can you find in Wisconsin snow in December?

• Hares, rabbits and squirrels

  Any snowy morning · Snowshoe hares mostly in the northern half; cottontails in the south; squirrels everywhere

  When these animals bound, the large hind feet swing past the front feet and land ahead of them, so the two big prints point the direction of travel. The snowshoe hare’s hind feet carry dense, stiff hair that lets it run on top of soft snow, and by December its coat is white. Cottontails leave smaller prints around brushy yards and field edges in the southern counties. A grouse print shows the comb-like fringes that grow on its toes each winter, which Lukes said roughly double the foot’s surface.

• Foxes, coyotes and wolves

  Fresh snow, especially along woods roads and frozen shorelines · Foxes and coyotes statewide; wolves in the northern and central forests

  A fox or coyote at a walk places its feet nearly in one straight line, a tidy row of prints. Size separates the larger canids: Lukes put a coyote’s front print at about two and a half inches and a wolf’s at about four and a quarter or more. The DNR’s estimate for the winter of 2024–25 was 1,226 wolves in about 336 packs, with packs averaging around four animals in winter and territories averaging about 60 square miles. Wolves are federally protected; enjoy the tracks and leave the animals alone.

• The DNR’s snow-tracking survey

  Through the snow season, one to three days after a fresh snowfall · Survey blocks of about 200 square miles across the wolf range

  Volunteers have helped DNR biologists track wolves and other carnivores since 1995. Because of a staff shortage, the department says it will not train new volunteer trackers for 2026–27; it suggests partner groups such as the Timber Wolf Information Network for classes.

When do Wisconsin lakes freeze over?

How much snow does Wisconsin get in December, and what could El Niño change?

When is the earliest sunset in Wisconsin?

What can you see in the Wisconsin night sky in December?

• The Geminid meteor shower

  Night of Sunday, December 13, into Monday, December 14 · Anywhere dark; the radiant in Gemini rises in the east and climbs all evening

  No shower this year is stronger. Forecasters at the International Meteor Organization expect about 150 an hour under an ideal sky, far more than anyone sees from town, though a few dozen an hour is realistic in the countryside. A slim crescent moon goes down by mid-evening, so most of the night is moonless. Meteors begin after dusk, and the richest hours are around 2 a.m., when Gemini is highest. Dress for ice fishing and let your eyes adjust for 20 minutes.

• The Cold Moon and the solstice

  Solstice at 2:50 p.m. Monday, December 21; full moon at 7:28 p.m. Wednesday, December 23 · Moonrise in the northeast near sunset

  The sun reaches its farthest point south on Monday afternoon, and that day is the shortest of the year. Two evenings later comes the year’s nearest full moon: it is full only about seven hours before perigee, its closest approach to Earth, so it looks a little larger and brighter than usual. Christmas Eve’s moon still looks round.

• Planets at dawn and dusk

  All month · Venus, Jupiter and Mars in the morning; Saturn in the southwest after dark

  Venus is the dazzling morning star in the southeast before sunrise, still climbing toward its greatest western elongation on January 3, 2027; a thin crescent moon joins it and the star Spica at dawn on the 4th and 5th. Jupiter and fainter, reddish Mars are up before dawn too, and by late December Jupiter is rising in mid-evening. Saturn is the only bright evening planet, a steady pale-gold point in the southwest that sets a little earlier each week.

What can Wisconsin families do outdoors in December?

Safety notes for December in Wisconsin