By the calendar, we’re a third of the way through winter. Even so, this time of year is when the first hints of spring appear, when Georgia’s wild creatures start stirring and moving about to find mates and produce babies.
Here’s a roundup of wildlife comings and goings and what to expect as we move into February:
- The winter breeding frogs — spring peepers, chorus frogs, Southern leopard frogs — are calling. A chorus of spring peepers is one of my favorite sounds of winter. I have heard the little frogs calling faintly for several days now from the woods in back of my home in Decatur. I hope the rains will really get them cranked up.
- Another favorite sound this time of year is owl hoots. Great horned owls and barred owls are courting and nesting and hooting loudly as they defend territories and attract mates. Some great horned owls already are incubating eggs.
- Several bald eagles that began nesting in December are tending babies.
- Male cardinals are starting to sing their territorial defense songs. Females soon will be answering them back. Cardinals are one of the few songbird species in which both males and females sing complex songs.
- Bluebirds soon will be checking out potential nesting sites. So will brown-headed nuthatches, which also are some of Georgia's earliest nesting songbirds.
- Purple martins will start returning any day now from winter homes in South America for the spring nesting season. In Albany, Larry Gridley said he has cleaned out and spiffed up his martin gourd houses in preparation for the birds' arrival. "My heart always skips a beat when I hear that first martin of the year," he said.
- On the coast, endangered right whales are caring for newborn calves.
- In the Altamaha and several other Georgia rivers, the shad run has started as the fish move upstream to spawn.
- Beavers, bobcats, gray foxes, red foxes, opossums and raccoons have started breeding.
- Black bears will be giving birth to cubs during the next few weeks.
- January also is one of two peak mating periods for gray squirrels and Southern flying squirrels, the other peak time being May and June. You might see several male gray squirrels now pursuing a female from tree to tree in what is called a "mating chase."
IN THE SKY: The moon is in first quarter this weekend, high in the south just after dark and setting around midnight, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Venus rises out of the east about an hour before sunrise. Mars is low in the southwest just after dark and sets in the west a few hours later. Jupiter rises out of the east about an hour before sunset and appears close to the moon Monday night. Saturn rises out of the east about midnight.
