Happy New Year! Here’s a brief wildlife guide for Georgia this year:
January: Breeding seasons begin for gray foxes, raccoons, bobcats and some other mammals. Spring peepers, chorus frogs and other winter frogs call. Right whales give birth offshore. Black bear cubs are born. Bald eagles and great horned owls tend chicks in nests.
February: Coyote and striped skunk breeding seasons begin. Bluebirds check nest boxes. Purple martins return. Red maples, trout lilies, hepatica, trailing arbutus, yellow jessamine bloom.
March: Ruby-throated hummingbirds return. Bluebirds, Carolina wrens nest. Litters of raccoons, bobcats, foxes and other mammals are born. Spring ephemeral wildflowers — bloodroot, toothwort, Dutchman’s britches, spring beauty and others — bloom.
April: First waves of warblers and other Neotropical songbirds return from Latin America. Trilliums, violets, dogwoods bloom. Butterflies flit about. Hardwoods leaf out.
May: Bird song fills the air; nesting season is in full swing. Loggerhead sea turtles lay eggs on barrier beaches. Spring wildflowers are in peak bloom.
June: Alligators build nests in wetlands. White-tailed fawns are born. Box turtles and other turtle species are breeding.
July: Life in wild slows with summer heat. Hummingbird nesting wraps up; birds return to feeders. Jewel-weed, black-eyed Susan, common milkweed bloom. Katydids and cicadas call.
August: Hummingbirds and some songbirds start heading south for winter. Babies of several snake species start crawling about. Orb-weaving spider webs appear. Baby sea turtles start crawling from nests on beaches and into the ocean.
September: Fall songbird migration fully underway. Goldenrods, asters and other fall wildflowers bloom.
October: Fall leaf color appears. Deer rutting season begins. Northern nesting songbirds and ducks arrive in Georgia for winter.
November: Fall leaf color peaks. Hardwoods shed leaves; evergreens stand out.
December: Winter brings quiet over the land.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks this weekend at about 50 meteors per hour — in the northern sky all night. Mercury is low in the west at dusk. Venus, low in the east, rises just before dawn. Mars is high in the southwest at dusk.
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