Missouri Nature Guide: December 2026
December is the start of a Missouri winter and the height of its great waterfowl and eagle spectacle — Loess Bluffs can hold up to a million snow geese, and bald eagles gather along the rivers. The bare woods, long nights, and brilliant winter sky make it a quietly rewarding month for the patient naturalist.
What to look for this week
- Bald eagles gather below the Mississippi River dams at Clarksville and the Old Chain of Rocks, fishing the open water as northern lakes freeze.
- Order seeds early before popular tomato and pepper varieties sell out, and prune dormant fruit trees on mild days.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks around January 3 in a short, sharp burst; look toward the northeast after midnight from a dark Ozark sky.
- The bare bottomland sycamores glow with their white, peeling upper bark against the gray winter woods.
Birds This Month
December is one of Missouri's great wildlife months. At Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in the northwest, the snow goose spectacle peaks — up to a million birds may pack the marsh, lifting off in vast roaring white clouds, mixed with greater white-fronted and Ross's geese and watched over by dozens of bald eagles. It is one of the largest concentrations of waterfowl in North America.
The bald eagle gathering is the other headline. As northern waters freeze, hundreds of eagles concentrate below the locks and dams of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers — Clarksville, the Old Chain of Rocks, and the big reservoirs — to fish the open water, and many towns hold Eagle Days events through December and January. The wetlands and reservoirs hold wintering mallards, gadwall, canvasback, common goldeneye, and common mergansers.
This is also Christmas Bird Count season, when birders fan out across the state to tally the winter birds. At the feeder, the winter regulars are settled in — dark-eyed juncos, white-throated and American tree sparrows, cardinals, chickadees, and roving flocks of cedar waxwings and Eastern bluebirds. Open country holds wintering red-tailed and rough-legged hawks and the occasional short-eared owl at dusk.
This month's tip: December is prime time for both the Loess Bluffs snow geese and the river eagle gatherings — go on a clear, cold morning for the best of both. Joining a local Christmas Bird Count is a fine way to see winter birds and contribute to long-running science.
What's Blooming
December is the quietest month for wildflowers in Missouri, with the landscape locked into winter. There are essentially no native flowers in bloom — the season ended with November's hard freezes — and the prairies, glades, and woods are brown, tan, and often snow-covered. The botanical interest now lies entirely in seed, structure, and the evergreen plants that hold their color through the cold.
The prairie grasses still make a subtle show, their bleached copper and gold stems and seed heads standing through the snow and catching the low winter sun — little bluestem especially glows russet against a December sky. The dried seed heads of coneflower, blazing star, and rattlesnake master persist as architecture and feed the wintering juncos and goldfinches. On the Ozark glades, the green rosettes of next year's Missouri evening primrose flatten against the warm dolomite, and the Christmas fern and spleenworts hold their evergreen fronds in the sheltered woods.
Where to see it: this is a month for appreciating winter structure rather than flowers. Walk a prairie remnant to see the grasses and seed heads in the snow, or an Ozark woodland for the evergreen ferns and the dried architecture of the summer's plants. Note where the rosettes wait — they mark the spots that will burst into bloom when spring returns.
Garden This Month
December is the Missouri gardener's month of rest and planning, with the beds dormant under mulch or snow. The active work is minimal: keep the protective mulch heaped over perennials, strawberries, and fall-planted garlic so the freeze-thaw cycles cannot heave them, and harvest any cold-hardy greens still holding in a cold frame or under heavy row cover in the milder south. On mild, dry days you can begin dormant pruning of fruit trees, grapes, and shade trees, since their bare structure is easy to read and the cold prevents stress.
Mostly, though, this is the season to plan. Review what worked and what failed this past year, browse the seed catalogs that arrive now, and order seeds early before the popular tomato and pepper varieties sell out. Keep the bird feeders full to draw the winter birds, and resist tidying the garden too completely — standing seed heads feed the finches and shelter overwintering insects. The growing year is genuinely over; the gardener's job now is to rest, plan, and wait for the lengthening light of the new year.
Zone 5b (northern Missouri): the garden is fully dormant and the work is done. Check that mulch stays heaped over perennials, strawberries, and garlic against the freeze-thaw, keep bird feeders full, and plan next year's garden by the fire. On mild days you can prune dormant fruit and shade trees, but otherwise this is a month of rest and ordering seed catalogs.
Zone 6a (central Missouri): dormancy and planning. Protect any cold-frame greens through the freezes, keep perennials and garlic well mulched, and prune dormant fruit trees and grapes on mild days. This is the time to review the past season, order seeds early, and dream up next year's garden while the beds rest under their mulch.
Zone 6b (southern Ozarks and St. Louis area): the mildest corner may still hold cold-hardy greens under cover — harvest kale, spinach, and mache from the cold frame through the month. Otherwise the garden is dormant: keep perennials mulched, prune dormant fruit trees, and begin the winter planning and seed ordering for the season ahead.
What's at the Farmers Market
December markets in Missouri are lean and focused on the storage harvest and the few winter growers, much like the deep-winter months to come. The keepers carry the holiday tables — storage apples, winter squash, sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, and garlic, along with the hearty root vegetables: carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, and celeriac.
The frost-sweetened greens from high tunnels and cold frames are at their best — kale, collards, spinach, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. This is the season for Missouri pecans and black walnuts for holiday baking, and the markets fill with local honey, sorghum, fresh evergreen wreaths and Christmas trees, and the makings of the winter holiday table.
For selection and storage: choose firm apples and squash with no soft spots and keep them cool and dry for long storage. Keep sweet potatoes in a warm, dark place rather than the refrigerator, and store the root crops cold with their tops trimmed off. Keep onions, garlic, and potatoes in separate cool, dark, ventilated spots. Refrigerate or freeze pecans and walnuts in the shell to protect their oils, and store the frost-sweetened greens cold and crisp, using them while they are at their winter best.
Night Sky This Month
December has the longest nights of the Missouri year, capped by the winter solstice around December 21, and the brilliant winter sky is in full glory early in the evening. Orion the Hunter climbs the southeastern sky after dark, his belt pointing down to Sirius, the brightest star in the night, and up to the V-shaped Hyades and the misty Pleiades in Taurus. Golden Capella, the twins Castor and Pollux, and blue-white Rigel fill out the dazzling winter scene.
The Geminid meteor shower peaks in mid-December, around December 14, and it is the best shower of the year — rich, bright, and reliable, capable of producing more than a meteor a minute from a dark sky. The Geminids radiate from near the twins of Gemini, which ride high overhead by late evening, so unlike most showers they are excellent from mid-evening onward, not just after midnight, from a dark, moonless site. The fainter winter Milky Way arches overhead through Orion, Gemini, and Auriga on the clearest nights.
The dark Ozark skies of Mark Twain National Forest are superb in December, with the long nights and the cold, dry air often crystal clear — bundle up warmly for the Geminids, which are well worth the cold. Because the exact Geminid peak and the planet positions shift each year, check the printable Missouri night-sky guide for this year's best viewing nights and planet visibility from your latitude.
Butterflies & Pollinators
December is the butterfly off-season in Missouri. The cold holds the entire season in suspension — our butterflies overwinter as eggs, caterpillars, chrysalises, and hidden adults, tucked into bark crevices, hollow stems, leaf litter, and brush piles, waiting out the winter. The prairies, glades, and gardens are entirely empty of fliers, and even a rare warm spell is unlikely to rouse anything this deep into the cold.
The hardy adult overwinterers — the mourning cloak, eastern comma, and question mark — are dormant behind loose bark and in woodpiles, their bodies protected by natural antifreeze compounds that let them survive the freezing Missouri winter. They will not stir again until a warm day in late winter or early spring. The monarch generation that left Missouri in the fall is now clustered by the millions in the high-elevation fir forests of central Mexico, far from our frozen state.
To support them now: the best thing you can do is nothing — leave the garden's standing stems, seed heads, leaf litter, and brush piles undisturbed through the winter, since they shelter the overwintering eggs, chrysalises, and hibernating adults. A messy winter garden is a nursery for next year's butterflies. Use the quiet season to plan next year's milkweed and nectar plantings for the spring return.
Trees This Month
December shows the Missouri tree world in its full winter form, and the bare hardwoods reveal their architecture against the cold sky. Without leaves, the white upper bark of the bottomland sycamores glows, the shaggy plates of the shagbark hickory stand out, and the rugged silhouettes of the great white and bur oaks are fully exposed. Some young oaks and the beeches still cling to their bleached, papery leaves through the winter winds.
The evergreens carry the green through the cold. Eastern red cedar stands dark and dense on the glades, old fields, and fencerows, its frosted blue berry-like cones feeding the wintering cedar waxwings, robins, and bluebirds, and the native shortleaf pine holds its needles dark green on the Ozark ridges. Down in the Bootheel, the bald cypress stand leafless and gray over the swamp, their flared trunks and knees fully exposed. The state tree, the flowering dogwood, waits as a small gray understory tree with its flower buds already set, and the whole forest rests in dormancy, holding its energy for the spring to come.
Go deeper with the Missouri guides
The complete Missouri birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: December in Montana · December in Nebraska · December in Nevada