Alabama Nature Guide: February 2026
February is when Alabama's spring starts in the warm south and creeps north — red maples haze the swamps crimson, the first daffodils and Japanese magnolias open, and woodcock dance at dusk over old fields. The Sandhill Cranes still crowd Wheeler NWR, but the year is turning, and the very first Purple Martins scout the Gulf Coast.
What to look for this week
- Sandhill Cranes crowd the fields at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge at their winter peak, bugling over the Tennessee River, while Christmas Bird Counts wrap up across the state.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short, sharp burst around January 3 — best after midnight from a dark Cumberland Plateau ridge or the unlit west end of Dauphin Island.
- Camellias, the state flower, open red, pink, and white against the cold in gardens across central and south Alabama and at Bellingrath Gardens near Mobile.
Birds This Month
February holds Alabama's winter birds while the first hints of spring arrive. Sandhill Cranes still fill the fields at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, though they begin to thin and stir toward their northern breeding grounds late in the month, and wintering waterfowl, Bald Eagles, and sparrow flocks remain across the state. On mild evenings, American Woodcock begin their spiraling, peenting twilight sky-dances over old fields and clearings, and Great Horned Owls are already on eggs in the bare woods.
The first migrants reach the coast: along the Gulf, the earliest Purple Martins arrive at scout time — Alabama is famous for them — and the first Tree Swallows, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, and a few early Blue-gray Gnatcatchers appear in the south. Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles swell into noisy flocks, Wild Turkeys begin gobbling, and resident Northern Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, and Tufted Titmice sing in earnest on warm mornings. The state bird, the Northern Flicker (Yellowhammer), drums on hollow snags as the breeding season nears.
What's Blooming
February is when Alabama's wildflower and bloom season truly opens in the warm south and works north. The late camellias finish their long winter show, and the first ornamental trees light up — Japanese magnolia (saucer magnolia) opens its pink goblets, flowering quince flushes red, and forsythia turns yellow in gardens across the state. The native red maple hazes the Coastal Plain swamps and the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in tiny crimson flowers, the first true wild color of the year.
On the woodland floor of central and south Alabama, the earliest spring ephemerals stir — spring beauty, trout lily, and the first bloodroot push up in rich woods, and the native Carolina jessamine begins to drape fragrant yellow trumpets over fences and trees. In gardens and old home places, daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops, and fragrant winter honeysuckle bloom, and on the Gulf Coast the first azaleas begin in the warmest spots, foreshadowing the great Mobile azalea show to come. Henbit and dandelions wash the warm fields, the first nectar for early bees.
Garden This Month
February is the turning point of the Alabama garden year, when the cool-season garden goes in across the warm middle and south of the state while the plateau still waits. In the Coastal Plain and Black Belt, direct-sow English peas, spinach, lettuce, radishes, carrots, beets, turnips, and kale, set out onion plants, potatoes, and cabbage and broccoli transplants, and plant asparagus crowns and strawberries in a prepared bed. On the Gulf Coast the season is even further along.
Across the whole state, this is prime pruning month — finish dormant pruning of apple, peach, pear, and plum trees, muscadine grapes, blueberries, and roses before the buds break, and spray peaches and plums for disease at bud swell. Start tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil indoors under lights now so transplants are ready when frost passes — late March in the south, mid-April on the plateau. Prepare beds with compost on dry days, watch for the first weeds in the warming soil, and resist setting tender warm-season crops out too early, as a hard frost can still strike well into the month.
Zone 7b (Cumberland Plateau & north Alabama): still cold, with hard frosts likely all month. Prune dormant fruit trees, grapes, and roses on mild dry days, finish ordering seeds, and start tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant indoors under lights toward month's end for the spring planting still six weeks off.
Zone 8a (central Alabama & Black Belt): the cool-season garden goes in. Direct-sow English peas, spinach, lettuce, radishes, carrots, and beets, set out onion plants and potatoes, and start warm-season seedlings indoors as the frost-free date nears in a few weeks.
Zone 9a (Gulf Coast): spring planting is already underway. Set out cool-season transplants, sow more greens, peas, and root crops, plant potatoes and onions, and start tomatoes and peppers indoors for an early coastal harvest.
What's at the Farmers Market
February markets in Alabama still lean on winter storage crops and cold-hardy greens, with the first faint stirrings of spring on the warm coast. The Southern winter greens remain the heart of the stands — frost-sweetened collards, kale, cabbage, mustard, and turnip greens, along with stored sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, turnips, rutabagas, and the last winter squash from the root cellar.
The Gulf-coast satsuma run winds down, with the last of the easy-peeling mandarins and some kumquats still on coastal tables. Shelled pecans remain plentiful, and value-added Alabama staples — local honey, sorghum syrup, cane syrup, and stone-ground grits and cornmeal — round out the market. Year-round markets like Birmingham's Pepper Place and Mobile's coastal stands keep things moving, and bedding plants and seed potatoes begin appearing for home gardeners. Choose greens crisp and unwilted and store them cold and damp, keep pecans in the freezer to protect their oils, and pick the heaviest satsumas while the late ones last.
Night Sky This Month
February's crisp nights still favor Alabama's upland dark-sky spots — the observing fields and star parties of the Von Braun Astronomical Society at Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville, the Birmingham Astronomical Society sites, and the dark ridgelines of the Cumberland Plateau and Bankhead National Forest. The unlit western tip of Dauphin Island and the open Black Belt prairies give wide, low horizons for those in the south.
The brilliant winter constellations still rule the evening: Orion stands high in the south with the great Winter Hexagon around it, dazzling Sirius blazing below, and the Pleiades and Hyades clusters riding overhead. As the night goes on, Leo the Lion climbs in the east with bright Regulus, the herald of spring, and the Beehive Cluster in Cancer glows in binoculars between Leo and Gemini. There is no major meteor shower this month — a fine time instead for the deep-sky targets of the winter Milky Way. The printable Alabama night-sky guide lists this year's exact planet positions and the best dark-sky sites for your region.
Butterflies & Pollinators
February begins to wake Alabama's butterflies, especially in the warm south, as the first spring flowers and tree blossoms offer nectar. The overwintering adults emerge on mild afternoons — mourning cloaks, eastern commas, and question marks patrol sunlit woodland edges and forest roads in the uplands, and on the Gulf Coast a gulf fritillary, cloudless sulphur, or American lady may be on the wing. The earliest spring azures, tiny and pale blue, can appear at woodland edges in the south late in the month.
The first falcate orangetip — a small white spring specialist of rich Alabama woods, the male tipped with orange — may emerge late in February in the warmest central and southern ravines, flying low over its mustard-family host plants. Most species, though, are still developing — the eastern tiger and spicebush swallowtails as chrysalides, monarchs still in Mexico — and the great emergence waits for March and April. Now is the last chance to leave brush piles, leaf litter, and standing stems undisturbed; clearing them too early destroys the overwintering eggs, chrysalides, and hibernating adults that become spring's first butterflies.
Trees This Month
February is when Alabama's trees begin to break dormancy, starting in the warm south. The first and most striking is the native red maple, which flushes its tiny crimson flowers along the swamps and the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, washing whole bottomlands in a red haze — the first real color of the tree year. The silver maple and boxelder follow, and the catkins of alder, river birch, and hazelnut lengthen and shed pollen along the streams.
Ornamental and early-flowering trees join in across the state: Japanese magnolia (saucer magnolia) opens its pink goblets, the native red maple and American elm flower bare, and the buds of eastern redbud and flowering dogwood swell, ready to burst in March. The evergreens hold strong — longleaf, loblolly, and shortleaf pine, live oak, southern magnolia, and American holly — and on the plateau the bare hardwoods still show their winter architecture. By month's end the warm Coastal Plain woods carry a faint green-and-red haze of breaking buds, the leading edge of spring moving north up the state.
Go deeper with the Alabama guides
The complete Alabama birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: February in Arizona · February in Arkansas · February in California