California Nature Guide: February 2026
February is when California's spring truly begins. The Central Valley's almond orchards erupt into a sea of pink-and-white bloom, the hills are at their greenest, and in a wet year the deserts of the south start their wildflower show. Winter waterfowl still pack the wetlands.
What to look for this week
- Snow geese, white-fronted geese, and pintail jam the Sacramento and San Joaquin valley refuges; sandhill cranes roost near Lodi and Cosumnes.
- San Joaquin Valley navel and Cara Cara oranges and easy-peel Satsuma mandarins are at their winter peak.
- Western monarchs hang in clustered curtains in the coastal groves at Pismo Beach, Pacific Grove, and Natural Bridges.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks around January 3 in a brief, sharp burst, best after midnight from a dark desert site.
Birds This Month
February holds the best of California's winter birding while the first stirrings of spring begin. The wintering waterfowl of the Central Valley — snow and Ross's geese, white-fronted geese, tundra swans in the northern valley, and a dozen species of duck — are still abundant at the Sacramento and San Joaquin refuges, and the sandhill cranes near Lodi and the Cosumnes River are still gathering at dusk. The Klamath Basin on the Oregon line holds the largest winter concentration of bald eagles in the lower 48, drawn to the waterfowl.
The coast remains excellent. The southbound gray whale migration gives way to the first northbound mothers and calves hugging the shore, watched from Point Reyes and the Monterey headlands amid wintering loons, grebes, and scoters. Inland, listen for the year's first songs: resident California towhees, spotted towhees, oak titmice, and Anna's hummingbirds are already in full breeding voice, and Anna's — which nest in midwinter here — are feeding young.
February is also when the endemic yellow-billed magpie, found nowhere on Earth but California's Central Valley and Coast Ranges, begins its conspicuous courtship and nest-building in the valley oaks. Acorn woodpeckers are noisy at their granaries, and the chaparral hums with wrentits, California thrashers, and coveys of California quail.
This month's tip: catch the waterfowl before they leave — late February is the last reliable window for the big valley-refuge spectacle before the geese and cranes head north, and the birds are now in their crispest breeding plumage.
What's Blooming
February is when California's wildflower season ignites, and it begins in the desert and the orchard. In a year with good winter rain, the floor of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the low Colorado Desert come alive with desert sand verbena, dune evening primrose, desert sunflower, and the magenta of desert lily and beavertail cactus — the early front of a potential superbloom that can carpet whole washes and bajadas. The desert bloom rolls upslope through the month as the warmth climbs.
The hills of cismontane California green and flower too. The first California poppies open in earnest across the southern and central foothills, ceanothus (California lilac) throws sheets of blue over the chaparral, and shooting stars, milkmaids, hound's tongue, and buttercups appear in the oak woodland understory. The coast shows early seaside daisy and the first lupines.
Where to look: Anza-Borrego and the low desert first — call the park's wildflower hotline before a trip, as bloom timing swings wildly with the rains. Closer to the coast, walk a chaparral trail in the Santa Monica Mountains or a foothill reserve, and watch the orchards of the Central Valley turn pink and white as the almond bloom takes over the landscape.
Garden This Month
February is a transition month in the California garden, the last of the dormant-season tasks overlapping the first stirrings of spring. In the mild zones, finish bare-root planting of roses, deciduous fruit trees, grapes, and cane berries before they break dormancy, and complete winter pruning of apples, pears, and stone fruit. Apply the final dormant-oil and copper spray to peaches and nectarines just before bud break — your last chance to prevent peach leaf curl for the year.
The cool-season vegetable garden is still productive in the coast and valley — keep harvesting greens, broccoli, and root crops, and squeeze in one more sowing of peas, lettuce, spinach, and cilantro before the heat. This is the month to start warm-season seeds indoors: tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant sown now will be ready to transplant after the last frost. February is also peak season for planting California native plants while the rains are still falling — natives set out now establish on winter moisture and sail through summer drought. Pull cool-season weeds aggressively before they seed, and feed the citrus as it finishes ripening.
Zone 10a (mild coast, Los Angeles basin): the season is well ahead on the frost-free coast — keep harvesting cool-season crops, plant the last bare-root stock, and you can start setting out the earliest warm-season transplants in the most sheltered spots late in the month. Plant summer-blooming natives and citrus.
Zone 5b (high Sierra Nevada): still deep winter at elevation — the ground is frozen or snow-covered and outdoor planting is weeks away. Finish dormant pruning of fruit trees on mild dry days, start onions and other slow crops indoors under lights, and plan the short high-country season.
Zone 9b (Central Valley, inland Southern California): finish bare-root planting of roses, fruit trees, and grapes now, and complete dormant pruning and the final dormant-oil spray before bud break. Start tomato and pepper seeds indoors, and plant potatoes and another round of peas and lettuce in the warming soil.
What's at the Farmers Market
California's winter markets stay rich in February, still led by citrus at its absolute peak. Navel and Cara Cara oranges, blood oranges, mandarins, Meyer lemons, and ruby grapefruit from the San Joaquin Valley and the desert valleys are sweet and plentiful — choose fruit heavy for its size, and store it loose and cool. The much-anticipated kumquats and the last of the pomelos round out the citrus stalls.
The cool-season vegetables are still the backbone of the table: sweet, frost-improved broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, cabbages, kale, chard, and Brussels sprouts from the foggy Central Coast, plus carrots, beets, leeks, fennel, and a range of lettuces. Watch for the first tender shoots of green garlic and the very first Castroville artichokes beginning the long Monterey-Bay artichoke season. Southern California Hass avocados are coming on strong.
For selection and storage: choose artichokes that are heavy and squeak when squeezed, keep them bagged and cold; pick crisp, unwilted greens and keep them dry; store avocados firm on the counter and refrigerate once they soften. February shopping rewards the citrus lover — the season's sweetest oranges sell fast.
Night Sky This Month
February offers California some of its clearest, driest nights of the winter, ideal for the state's renowned dark-sky destinations. Death Valley National Park — an International Dark Sky Park — is at its best now, with mild evenings and exceptional transparency, and Joshua Tree and Anza-Borrego in the south, and Lassen Volcanic National Park in the north, all offer outstanding winter skies. Public observatories such as Mount Wilson above Los Angeles and Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton sit under famously steady California air.
The winter constellations still own the evening sky. Orion stands due south after dark, anchoring the brilliant Winter Hexagon of Sirius, Procyon, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran, and Rigel. Look for the faint, fuzzy patch of the Orion Nebula in the Hunter's sword, a fine target even in binoculars from a dark site. As the evening wears on, Leo the Lion climbs in the east, the first herald of spring, and the Big Dipper swings high in the north.
There is no major meteor shower in February. For this year's planet positions and the darkest nights around the new moon, consult the printable California night-sky guide, which tailors the timing to the state's latitudes.
Butterflies & Pollinators
February is the hinge of the western monarch year. The overwintering clusters at Pismo Beach, Pacific Grove, and Natural Bridges begin to thin and break up as the days lengthen — the monarchs mate and disperse inland from the coastal groves to seek the first sprouting milkweed on which to lay the season's first eggs. A late-February visit to a grove can still find monarchs basking and mating in the eucalyptus and Monterey cypress before they scatter.
Warming days bring more species onto the wing. The mourning cloak patrols foothill canyons, joined increasingly by the painted lady — in a wet desert spring, the first northbound waves of painted ladies begin streaming up out of the Mojave and Colorado deserts and across Southern California, sometimes in remarkable numbers. Sara orangetips appear on foothill slopes, a true early-spring butterfly, and the anise swallowtail begins flying on the coast, often around naturalized fennel.
To help them: the single best act now is to have native milkweed sprouting for the dispersing monarchs — California's own narrowleaf and showy milkweeds, not the tropical kind, which can disrupt the migration. Add early-blooming nectar (ceanothus, manzanita, and any blooming garden flowers) to fuel the painted ladies and orangetips, and leave the wild mustards and lupines that feed many spring caterpillars.
Trees This Month
February belongs to the almond bloom. Across the Central Valley, more than a million acres of almond orchards burst into pinkish-white flower, a fleeting, breathtaking sweep of bloom that draws billions of honeybees and marks, for many Californians, the true start of spring. The almond is the earliest of the orchard trees, and its bloom is followed within weeks by peaches, nectarines, and plums as the month wears on.
In the wild, the first native trees flower too. The California buckeye is the earliest to leaf out, its bright new green appearing on foothill slopes while most trees are still bare. Foothill willows and cottonwoods push catkins and the first tender leaves along the streams, and the silver-tasseled flowers of silk-tassel bush hang in the chaparral. The great evergreens carry on unchanged — the coast redwoods drink the winter storms, the giant sequoias stand in Sierra snow, and the coast live oaks hold their dark canopies over the greening hills. Watch the valley oaks; by month's end the earliest are beginning to swell their buds toward March leaf-out.
Go deeper with the California guides
The complete California birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: February in Colorado · February in Connecticut · February in Delaware