Birch Compass
January 2026 — Wyoming Nature Journal
What to look for this month near you, with room to record what you find.
This month in nature
Birds to watch
- Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura
- Horned Lark Eremophila alpestris
- Common Raven Corvus corax
- Black-billed Magpie Pica hudsonia
- Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis
- (Red-shafted Flicker) Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus cafer
In bloom
A quiet month here — watch and note what you find.
In the garden
- A planning week: order the ultra-short-season seed Wyoming's high valleys depend on before it sells out, and check stored potatoes and squash for rot.
- Leave drifted snow banked over perennial beds and fall garlic as insulation, and gently knock heavy wet snow off arborvitae to prevent splitting.
- Start onions and leeks under lights now — the slowest crops need this head start to mature in a short, frost-bracketed mountain season.
Night sky
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short, sharp burst around January 3 — watch after midnight from a dark Red Desert pullout away from town lights.
- Brilliant Orion dominates the southern sky over the cold, dry basins, his belt pointing to blazing Sirius and orange Aldebaran in Taurus.
- The brilliant winter hexagon wheels overhead through the faint winter Milky Way — the cold, dry basin air gives the clearest viewing of the year.
My field notes