Here we are already well into the second month of the year, February, which early on brought Groundhog Day and will end, this year, with an extra day.

February is the last full month of winter, by the almanac at least. It's the time of quiet stirrings in the ground, when last fall's seed crop is getting ready to spring forth with new life. Any day now, a freshening green will start emerging all over the place. The ferns will be putting out their fiddleheads and bald cypress trees will start leafing out in the swamps. Before the month is over, we'll have bright yellow dandelions and purple violets blooming in our yards. Red maples and Chickasaw plums will be flowering along the roadsides, and, in South Georgia, yellow jessamine will be sporting its bright, fragrant flowers.

JOE SONGER / AP file (ENLARGE)

Now is the time clean out bluebird boxes in preparation for house-hunting pairs: It's almost time for them to start families.

RANDY HAYES / AP (ENLARGE)

Nesting season for ospreys in Georgia will begin before February is over.

MORE WILD GEORGIA: [an error occurred while processing this directive]

In the Piedmont, trailing arbutus, trout lilies and butterwort will be among the earliest flowers to bloom. In the Okefenokee Swamp, wildflowers such as neverwet, arrowhead and climbing heath also will start to flower.

February also is the time of year when wild creatures have powerful thoughts of baby-making. This is, after all, the month of Valentine's Day.

Bluebirds especially become romantic now. Already, pairs of the beautiful birds are checking out nesting boxes in which to raise their babies. If you haven't already done so, now is the time to clean out your bluebird boxes and get them in shape for the nesting season.

Already arriving for their spring nesting season in Georgia are the first waves — the so-called "scouts" — of purple martins from their winter grounds as far south as Brazil in South America. Get your gourd houses and other martin nesting boxes up and ready for the season.

Some other wild happenings that we can expect this month:

• Spectacular flocks of northbound sandhill cranes will be migrating high over Georgia on their way back to summer nesting grounds up north. (It seems that they were still heading south only a few weeks ago.)

• Spring peepers will be "yeeping" and the Southern leopard frog will be heard calling throughout Georgia. Also breeding in most of the state will be upland chorus frogs, which prefer hardwood forests and bottomland swamps. In North Georgia and the Piedmont, American toads will be laying eggs in rain-filled woodland pools, ditches and shallow upland streams.

• The purple finches, pine siskins, red-breasted nuthatches and other little birds that visited us this winter will begin their migration back to northern nesting areas.

• Nesting season for ospreys will begin; wild turkeys will begin mating.

• Red-tailed hawks will be doing their aerial courtships.

• Wood ducks begin nest building in boxes and natural cavities. Male wood ducks frequently stand atop nest boxes during early morning hours, offering easy viewing.

• American woodcocks continue their awesome courtship rituals.

• Woodpeckers begin their mating season and announce territories by drumming on houses, telephone poles and other objects. Like many other folks with wood-sided homes, I'll be driven nuts by the woodpeckers as they pound on my walls at daybreak.

• The babies of bald eagles and great horned owls born earlier this winter will be leaving their nests.

• Eastern moles will breed in tunnels under our lawns.

• First litters of gray squirrels and flying squirrels will arrive.

• Black bear cubs are still being born, but early arrivals already are emerging with their mothers from their dens.

• Striped skunks begin their mating season. Red foxes, coyotes, beavers and several other mammal species will wrap up their seasons.

• White-tailed male deer begin to lose their antlers.

• Ducks and other wintering waterfowl begin to leave the coastal wildlife refuges, including Harris Neck, Blackbeard Island and Savannah national wildlife refuges, for summer nesting grounds in the Midwest and up north.

Hummingbird adventure

As we reported here earlier, five species of hummingbirds have been seen in Georgia so far this winter. On a hummingbird adventure of sorts the other day, Bill Lotz of Atlanta and Dan Vickers of Lilburn tried to see all five in one day. They started in Dublin to see a green-breasted mango hummingbird and a rufous hummingbird that have been hanging out in a neighborhood there for several weeks now. Then they set off for Henry County to see a black-chinned hummingbird, which, unfortunately, was a no-show on that particular day. They did see, however, a broad-tailed hummingbird in Mableton and a calliope hummingbird in Lilburn. "Four species of wintering hummers in a little over 6.5 hours was a fun challenge," Lotz says.

In the sky

The moon will be first quarter on Feb. 13. It will rise out of the east about lunchtime and will be high in the south as the sky darkens, says Fernbank Science Center astronomer David Dundee. Mercury is low in the east just before sunrise. Venus rises out of the east about two hours before sunrise. Mars is high in the south at about sunset and will appear near the moon on Saturday night. Jupiter shines brightly in the predawn sky, rising out of the east about two hours before sunrise. Saturn rises out of the east at sunset.