Texas Nature Guide: February 2026
February is the hinge of the Texas year — winter is still very much in charge across the north, but the first stirrings of spring are unmistakable. Mexican plum and redbud begin to bloom, mountain laurel scents the Hill Country, and on the coast the first scouting hummingbirds are already feeling their way back north.
What to look for this week
- Whooping cranes are wintering at Aransas NWR now, alongside flocks of sandhill cranes and snow geese on the coastal rice prairies.
- Texas Ruby Red grapefruit from the Rio Grande Valley is at peak; the trees hold ripe fruit and a few late white blossoms.
- Bare-root fruit trees and dormant native trees go in the ground now while everything is leafless and roots can settle before spring.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks around January 3 in a short, sharp burst; look northeast after midnight away from city lights.
Birds This Month
February is a transition month for Texas birds, holding the best of winter while the first hints of spring slip in. The great winter gatherings are still in place for most of the month: whooping cranes remain in the Aransas marshes, sandhill cranes still bugle over the coastal prairie and Panhandle playas, and the snow geese and wintering ducks continue to crowd the upper-coast rice country. Cedar waxwings and American robins work the last of the yaupon and possumhaw berries, and yellow-rumped warblers and wintering sparrows are still abundant in every brush pile.
But the calendar is turning. Late in the month, the first ruby-throated hummingbird scouts — almost always adult males — begin reaching the upper Texas coast, the leading edge of the great spring push, so it is worth getting a clean feeder up by mid-February in coastal and southeast counties. Resident birds are gearing up to breed: Northern cardinals and Carolina wrens are singing in earnest, eastern bluebirds are inspecting nest boxes, and the great horned owls are already on eggs in stick nests.
The Rio Grande Valley reaches its winter birding climax now, with the South Texas specialties — green jays, great kiskadees, plain chachalacas, and Altamira orioles — joined by wintering rarities that draw birders from around the country to the World Birding Center sites along the river.
This month's tip: hedge your bets. Keep the winter feeders and a heated birdbath going for the lingering sparrows and waxwings, but clean and hang a fresh nectar feeder on the coast by mid-month so the first returning hummingbirds find a welcome.
What's Blooming
February is when Texas wildflowers truly wake up, and the first blooms are some of the most welcome of the year. In the Hill Country and central Texas, the small native Mexican plum opens a cloud of fragrant white blossoms on still-bare branches, often the very first flowering tree of the season, and the Texas redbud begins studding its dark twigs with rose-pink before any leaves appear. The signature scent of the Hill Country spring arrives as the Texas mountain laurel hangs out its drooping purple flower clusters, famous for a sweet grape-soda fragrance that carries on the warm afternoons.
At ground level the cool-season annuals come into their own. Ten-petal anemone, henbit, Texas dandelion, and the lavender mats of prairie verbena spread across roadsides and prairies, and the first true bluebonnet plants begin sending up their flower stalks in the warm southern counties — a few precocious plants may even show their first blue in the deep south and Hill Country by late February.
Where to see it: drive the Hill Country back roads for redbud and mountain laurel, and watch the limestone neighborhoods of Austin and San Antonio where mountain laurel is widely planted. The LBJ Wildflower Center is stirring back to life, and any South Texas brush-country trail will show the earliest verbena and anemone before the rest of the state has caught up.
Garden This Month
February is when the Texas garden shifts from planning to planting, though how far you go depends entirely on where you are. This is the classic month to plant seed potatoes across most of the state — the traditional rule of thumb in central Texas is to get them in around mid-February — along with onion transplants, which want to be in the ground now so they bulb before the long days of late spring. Cool-season crops still have a full window: English peas, spinach, carrots, beets, radishes, lettuce, and the cole crops all go in now.
This is also the month to start your warm-season transplants indoors. Sow tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds now so the seedlings are stout and ready to set out after the last frost in March. Outdoors, finish any dormant pruning before the buds break, top-dress beds with compost, and watch the forecast — February in Texas swings from balmy to hard-freeze in a single front, so keep frost cloth within reach for the tender new plantings and any citrus.
Zone 8a (north & north-central Texas): still the cusp of the season around Dallas-Fort Worth — your average last frost is mid-March, so plant in the ground only the hardiest cool-season crops (onions, potatoes, English peas, spinach, carrots) and keep frost cloth ready. Start tomato and pepper seeds indoors now, and finish dormant pruning before the buds swell.
Zone 8b (central Texas, Austin area): prime potato-and-onion month — plant seed potatoes, onion transplants, English peas, carrots, beets, and spring greens now. Set out cole crops, and start warm-season tomato and pepper transplants indoors so they are ready to go out in March.
Zone 9a (Gulf coast & south, Houston/San Antonio): spring is arriving — plant potatoes and onions early in the month, keep sowing greens and root crops, and toward month's end you can begin hardening off and even setting out the earliest tomato transplants under cover if a warm spell holds.
Zone 9b (deep south Texas, Rio Grande Valley): the warmest corner is already moving into warm-season planting — frost risk is essentially past, so set out tomato, pepper, and eggplant transplants now, plant beans and squash, and get the warm crops established before the Valley heat arrives early.
What's at the Farmers Market
February is still a citrus month, and the Texas Ruby Red grapefruit from the Rio Grande Valley holds its peak — sweet, deep red, and abundant. Choose fruit that is heavy for its size for the juiciest flesh, and store grapefruit and the late Texas oranges, tangerines, and satsumas loose in the refrigerator, where they keep for weeks; a sealed bag traps moisture and invites mold. This is the tail end of the great Valley citrus run, so it is the last easy month to stock up.
The cool-season vegetables are at their best, sweetened by the winter cold. Look for collards, kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts, alongside carrots, beets, turnips, and radishes and tender winter spinach and lettuces. The frosts of midwinter concentrate the sugars in greens and root crops, so February produce often tastes better than the same vegetables grown in milder months.
For selection and storage: pick leafy greens with crisp, fully turgid leaves and no yellowing, and keep them dry in the crisper drawer; trim the tops from carrots, beets, and turnips before storing so the roots stay firm rather than going soft; and keep cabbage and the cole crops cold and loosely wrapped. Going early still rewards you at the February market, when the freshest greens and the best of the remaining citrus go first.
Night Sky This Month
February nights are still long and the air is often at its clearest and steadiest of the year, which keeps the brilliant winter sky on full display. Orion remains the centerpiece of the early-evening south, with the belt pointing down to Sirius, the brightest star in the night, and up to the orange eye of Taurus, Aldebaran, and the misty Pleiades cluster. The great hexagon of winter — Sirius, Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, the twins Castor and Pollux in Gemini, and Procyon — wheels across the south, the richest patch of bright stars in the whole year.
By late evening the winter stars begin sliding west and the springtime sky follows them up in the east: the backwards-question-mark Sickle of Leo the Lion clears the horizon, led by its bright star Regulus, a sign that spring is on the way even as winter still holds the early evening. There is no major meteor shower in February — the next strong, reliable shower will not come until later in the spring and summer — so this is a month for constellations and bright stars rather than for counting meteors.
The dark-sky country of West Texas, especially Big Bend and the Davis Mountains around McDonald Observatory, is superb on a crisp February night. Planet positions and the exact timing of any minor activity shift from year to year, so check the printable Texas night-sky guide for this year's specific viewing nights and planet visibility from your latitude.
Butterflies & Pollinators
February brings the first real butterfly activity back to Texas, though it is still modest and weather-dependent. A warm, sunny afternoon late in the month can coax out the earliest fliers across the southern and central parts of the state, while the north stays largely quiet until March. The earliest species to appear are usually the swallowtails and the small, fast sulphurs and skippers, taking advantage of the first blooms.
Along the coast and in South Texas, the warm corners stay more active throughout the month — queens and gulf fritillaries may be on the wing on mild days, and the black swallowtail begins to show as the first generation gets going on early dill, fennel, and parsley. The northbound monarchs are still well south of Texas this month; the first wave of the famous spring migration through the state does not typically arrive until March.
To bring them in: February is the month to get the host and nectar plants in the ground ahead of the season. Plant native milkweed (antelope-horns and green milkweed are well suited to Texas) for the monarchs and queens that will arrive in spring, passionflower for the fritillaries, and dill, fennel, and parsley for the black swallowtails already laying. Early nectar from blooming Mexican plum, redbud, and mountain laurel feeds the first fliers, so leave those native bloomers be.
Trees This Month
February is the month the Texas trees begin to break their winter rest, and the first to move are the flowering natives. The Mexican plum is often the earliest tree to bloom, opening fragrant white flowers on bare branches across the Hill Country and central prairies, and the Texas redbud starts pushing its rose-pink buds along still-leafless twigs toward a fuller bloom in March. The evergreen Texas mountain laurel hangs out its sweetly fragrant purple flower clusters, scenting the limestone neighborhoods and canyons.
The state's signature evergreen also has its February moment: the live oaks begin their unusual late-winter leaf exchange, dropping last year's old leaves as the new ones push out, so a live oak in February can look thin and ragged even though it never truly went bare. That exchange, together with the heavy bloom of the Ashe juniper (the cedar of the Hill Country), is the source of the famous central-Texas pollen of late winter. Meanwhile the pecans and other deciduous hardwoods stay firmly dormant and bare, weeks away from their late-spring leaf-out.
Go deeper with the Texas guides
The complete Texas birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: February in Utah · February in Vermont · February in Virginia