Oregon Nature Guide: December 2026
December is the heart of winter — the wet west gray and dripping, the Cascades deep in snow, and the Klamath Basin at its peak for wintering Bald Eagles and waterfowl. Gray whales pass the headlands, Christmas Bird Counts fan out, and Dungeness crab season is in full swing.
What to look for this week
- The Klamath Basin is at peak — thousands of wintering Bald Eagles hunt the rafts of snow geese, pintail, and tundra swans on Lower Klamath and Tule Lake.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short sharp burst around January 3; watch the northeast after midnight from a dark site like the Oregon Outback near Lakeview.
- Dungeness crab season is in full swing on the coast — fresh-cooked crab from Newport and Garibaldi is sweet, full, and at its best value now.
- In the mild Willamette Valley, prune dormant apples and pears and plant bare-root fruit on a dry window between the rains.
Birds This Month
December is prime winter birding in Oregon, and the season of the Christmas Bird Count. The Klamath Basin is at its spectacular peak, holding one of North America's largest winter concentrations of Bald Eagles hunting the immense rafts of snow geese, white-fronted geese, northern pintail, and tundra swans. The Willamette Valley refuges brim with cackling and dusky Canada geese and wintering sandhill cranes.
On the coast, the southbound gray whale migration peaks around the holidays, watchable from the headlands, and offshore the scoters, loons, grebes, and long-tailed ducks raft up, with harlequin ducks and black oystercatchers on the rocks. Brant winter in the bays. In the valley woods and at feeders, varied thrushes, spotted towhees, golden-crowned and fox sparrows, juncos, and the hardy resident Anna's hummingbirds hold through the cold. Watch for irruptive pine siskins and crossbills.
What's Blooming
December's bloom is minimal, but Oregon's mild maritime west keeps a few things going where the eastern high desert lies frozen. The fragrant winter shrubs lead — sweet box (Sarcococca), winter heath, winter daphne, and the strap-petaled witch hazel — scenting valley gardens and arboretums like Hoyt and the Oregon Garden. Hardy hellebores and the first snowdrops open in sheltered beds toward month's end.
The state flower, Oregon grape, holds its glossy holly-like leaves flushed bronze and purple in the cold, its bright berries persisting, and the native Pacific madrone still carries red berries on the coast and southwest hills. The forest's real winter color is the green of moss, licorice fern, and the late chanterelles in the duff. Streamside hazel and red alder catkins are already forming for the new year. East of the Cascades, the snow-covered sage steppe is entirely dormant.
Garden This Month
December is the quietest western Oregon garden month, but not a dead one. Overwintered kale, chard, leeks, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, and purple sprouting broccoli stand ready to harvest from the beds, sweetened by the cold, and mulched carrots and beets hold in the ground. On dry windows, plant bare-root fruit trees, cane fruit, and roses, and begin dormant pruning of apples, pears, and grapes.
Protect cloched greens and tender plants against the occasional hard valley frost, drain and store hoses, and keep off saturated soil to protect its structure. Clean, sharpen, and oil tools, organize the seed box, and order early to secure popular and short-season varieties before they sell out. East of the Cascades, the high-desert garden rests under snow — check stored produce, ensure the garlic mulch is deep, and plan next season's frost-hardy crops for the long Bend winter.
Zone 6b (Bend & high desert): deep dormancy under snow. Check stored squash, onions, and potatoes, confirm the garlic mulch is deep against the cold, and order short-season, frost-tough varieties for next year.
Zone 8a (Willamette Valley): harvest overwintering kale, leeks, and Brussels sprouts as needed, mulch root crops against hard frosts, and on dry windows plant bare-root fruit and prune dormant apples and grapes. Protect cloched greens from the deepest cold snaps.
Zone 8b (southwest valleys & coast): the mildest gardens keep cutting greens; harvest chard, kale, and leeks, plant bare-root fruit, and start planning the early spring sowings. The frost-free coast gardens through the winter.
What's at the Farmers Market
December markets center on Oregon's winter pantry and the holiday table. Fresh Willamette Valley hazelnuts are abundant for holiday baking, and the Hood River and Gorge pears and apples are sweet from weeks of storage. The vegetable stalls hold winter squash, potatoes, onions, leeks, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, parsnips, and hardy greens like kale and chard the mild valley keeps cutting.
The headliner is Dungeness crab: the Oregon coast season is in full swing, and fresh crab from Newport, Garibaldi, and Charleston is the centerpiece of the coast's traditional holiday feasts. Wild chanterelles continue from the wet forests. Choose crab heavy for its size and lively if buying live, store it cold and use it the same day, and keep hazelnuts cool to protect their oils. Store pears at room temperature to ripen and apples cold. A festive, hearty Oregon market month.
Night Sky This Month
December has Oregon's longest nights and the cold, dry eastern air gives superb sky transparency — though in the wet west you chase the clear windows between storms. The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary near Lakeview and Prineville Reservoir State Park deliver pristine high-desert darkness, and the snowy Cascade crest and Crater Lake rim sparkle on a clear cold night when the storms pause.
The winter sky is in full glory: Orion dominates the south, his nebula glowing in the sword and his belt pointing to brilliant Sirius and the Pleiades; the winter hexagon sprawls overhead through Auriga, Gemini, Taurus, and Canis Major, and the winter Milky Way runs through it. The Geminid meteor shower peaks around December 14 — the year's best and most reliable shower, with dozens of bright meteors an hour from a dark site. The Ursids follow near the solstice. The printable Oregon night-sky guide gives this year's planet positions and exact Geminid peak dates.
Butterflies & Pollinators
December is the deepest butterfly dormancy of the Oregon year, yet the mild western valleys can still produce a surprise. On a rare warm, sunny December afternoon above 50°F, an overwintering California tortoiseshell or mourning cloak may flutter briefly along a sheltered Willamette Valley or Rogue Valley woodland edge before retreating to its winter shelter in bark crevices, woodpiles, and outbuildings — a striking sight against the gray.
Otherwise every Oregon butterfly is wintering in place: hibernating as an adult, overwintering as a chrysalis fastened to a stem or wall, or waiting as an egg or partly grown caterpillar in the leaf litter and on host plants. Oregon's monarchs are clustered in their coastal California overwintering groves. East of the Cascades, the snow-locked high desert holds nothing on the wing. Leave the leaf litter, brush piles, and standing perennial stems undisturbed through winter — they shelter the dormant life that becomes the first butterflies of late winter.
Trees This Month
December returns Oregon to its evergreen winter character, the conifers carrying the entire western landscape. The state tree, Douglas-fir, with western hemlock, western redcedar, grand fir, noble fir, and coastal Sitka spruce, hold deep green through the rains and fog — and the Christmas-tree farms of the Willamette Valley, the nation's leading producer, are at their seasonal heart, with noble and Douglas-fir cut for the holidays.
The deciduous trees are bare, revealing their architecture: the white-barked Oregon white oak on the savanna, the moss-and-fern-draped gray limbs of bigleaf maple, and the open crowns of Oregon ash in the wet bottoms. The evergreen broadleaf Pacific madrone and tanoak hold the southwest hills, the eastside ponderosa pine and western juniper stand over snow, and the bare western larch waits out the winter. Streamside hazel and red alder already carry next year's catkins.
Go deeper with the Oregon guides
The complete Oregon birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: December in Pennsylvania · December in Rhode Island · December in South Carolina