Birch Compass
January 2026 — Nevada Nature Journal
What to look for this month near you, with room to record what you find.
This month in nature
Birds to watch
- Horned Lark Eremophila alpestris
- Common Raven Corvus corax
- Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura
- Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis
- Sage Thrasher Oreoscoptes montanus
- House Finch Haemorhous mexicanus
In bloom
- Nothing in flower here this month. The next to open are usually Desert Globemallow and Mojave Aster, around March — worth knowing where to be when they do.
In the garden
- In the mild Las Vegas valley, harvest cool-season lettuce, spinach, and broccoli and plant bare-root fruit trees while dormant.
- Las Vegas gardeners start tomatoes and peppers indoors now for setting out before the brutal low-desert summer heat arrives.
Night sky
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short, sharp burst around January 3 — watch the northeast after midnight from a dark site like Great Basin National Park.
- Orion dominates the southern sky, his belt pointing down to brilliant Sirius and up to the Pleiades in the crystalline dry desert air.
- The faint winter Milky Way threads Auriga and Gemini overhead, superb under the dark Tonopah and Massacre Rim skies.
Birds: species recorded on the USGS Breeding Bird Survey. Monthly presence describes typical seasonal timing modeled from regional patterns, not month-by-month counts.
My field notes