Missouri Nature Guide: February 2026
February is winter's last full month in Missouri, but the first cracks in the season appear by its end — sap rises in the maples, the earliest waterfowl push north, and great horned owls are already on eggs. It is a month of cold patience rewarded by the first unmistakable signs that spring is on the way.
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
February is a hinge month for Missouri birds. The bald eagle concentrations along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and below the big dams are still strong early in the month, and many eagles are already rebuilding and tending nests by late February. Below the dams and on the open reservoirs, wintering common goldeneye, common mergansers, and rafts of diving ducks ride the cold water.
The first big movement of the year begins as the days lengthen. Greater white-fronted geese and snow geese stream back north through the state, and Loess Bluffs and the Missouri River floodplain can again fill with white birds late in the month. Red-winged blackbirds return to the marshes and start their conk-la-ree singing, the surest sign that spring migration has begun, and common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds reappear in numbers.
At the feeder, Northern cardinals begin singing on mild mornings, and Eastern bluebirds — the state bird — pair up and start inspecting nest boxes well before winter is over. Listen at dusk in February woods for the deep hooting of great horned owls, which are already incubating eggs, and on warmer evenings for the first American woodcock beginning their spiraling sky-dance display over wet field edges.
This month's tip: clean out and repair your bluebird and wren boxes now. Bluebirds and chickadees scout nest sites in February, and a clean, dry box ready early is far more likely to be chosen.
What's Blooming
February brings the very first wildflowers to Missouri, though you have to know where to look. In the rich, protected bottomland woods of the southern half of the state and along sheltered Ozark hollows, the season cracks open on warm days. Harbinger-of-spring — aptly named, and one of the year's first to bloom — opens its tiny white-and-red flowers on the forest floor, earning its country name of salt-and-pepper.
In wet woods and seeps, the strange hooded skunk cabbage can push up and even melt the snow around it with its own metabolic heat in the far southeast, and the green spears of spring beauty and Dutchman's breeches begin to emerge. On warm rocky south-facing Ozark slopes, the year's earliest woodland flowers stir. In the eastern Ozarks, witch-hazel may still carry its thin yellow ribbon petals on milder days.
Where to see it: head for the warmest microclimates — south-facing slopes, river bottoms, and spring-fed hollows in the southern Ozarks, where the ground warms first. This is still a scouting month more than a viewing one, but finding harbinger-of-spring in bloom is the year's true botanical starting gun. The lawns begin to show their first henbit and spring beauty by month's end in the south.
Garden This Month
February is when the Missouri growing year quietly begins indoors. This is the prime seed-starting month under lights: onions and leeks first, then brassicas like broccoli and cabbage, and at month's end the long-season tomatoes and peppers that need eight to ten weeks before they go out in spring. A south window rarely gives enough light — a simple shop light over the flats makes a dramatic difference in producing stocky, healthy transplants.
Outdoors, finish the dormant work while the plants are still leafless: prune apple and pear trees, grapes, and summer-flowering shrubs, and plant bare-root and dormant fruit trees, asparagus crowns, and rhubarb in the milder south of the state. Toward the end of February, the toughest cool-season crops — peas, spinach, radishes, and lettuce — can go directly into a warm, well-drained bed under row cover in central and southern Missouri. Keep frost cloth handy, because hard freezes and even snow are still routine across the whole state.
Zone 5b (northern Missouri): still deep dormancy, but the seed-starting season begins indoors. Start onions, leeks, and the earliest brassicas under lights now. Outdoors, finish dormant pruning of fruit trees and grapes on mild days, and resist any urge to plant — hard freezes and snow are still routine through the northern counties.
Zone 6a (central Missouri): start tomato and pepper seeds indoors at the end of the month, and onions and brassicas right now. Toward late February you can direct-sow peas, spinach, and radishes in a warm, well-drained bed under cover, and prune fruit trees and roses before the buds break.
Zone 6b (southern Ozarks and St. Louis area): the milder south gets a head start — direct-sow peas, spinach, lettuce, and radishes under row cover, set out onion sets, and plant bare-root fruit trees and asparagus crowns while they are dormant. Start tomatoes and peppers indoors now for transplants in April.
What's at the Farmers Market
February markets in Missouri still lean on storage crops and winter high tunnels, much like January, but the late-winter selection has its own appeal. The keepers carry the month — storage apples, winter squash, sweet potatoes, and a full range of roots: carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, and celeriac. Parsnips and carrots that wintered in the ground are at their sweetest now.
High-tunnel growers keep cold-hardy greens coming — spinach, kale, mache, and tatsoi — and these greens are noticeably sweeter for the cold. You will also find stored onions, garlic, and potatoes, plus Missouri pecans, black walnuts, local honey, and the first maple syrup from southern Missouri sugarbushes as the sap begins to run.
For selection and storage: choose firm apples and squash with no soft spots and keep them cool and dry; trim the tops from carrots and beets and store the roots in the crisper; and keep onions, garlic, and potatoes in separate cool, dark, ventilated spots so the onions do not hasten the potatoes' sprouting. Pick crisp, unwilted greens and store them dry in the refrigerator, using them within a few days while they are at their best.
Night Sky This Month
February nights are still long and cold, and the brilliant winter sky is at its finest in the early evening. Orion stands due south after dark, flanked by his big and little dogs — Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, below him, and Procyon to his left. Overhead ride the twin stars Castor and Pollux of Gemini, golden Capella in Auriga, and the misty Pleiades cluster in Taurus. There is no major meteor shower this month, so the steady stars take center stage.
This is a fine month to find the fainter winter Milky Way arching overhead from Canis Major up through Orion and Gemini to Auriga and Perseus on a truly dark, clear night. The great Orion Nebula, hanging as a fuzzy patch in the Hunter's sword, is one of the best deep-sky targets of the year and shows beautifully even in binoculars. As the night wears on, the spring star Regulus in Leo climbs in the east, hinting at the season to come.
The dark Ozark skies of Mark Twain National Forest remain Missouri's best, away from the city glow of St. Louis and Kansas City — and February's cold, dry air is often exceptionally steady and transparent. Because the planets shift their positions from year to year, check the printable Missouri night-sky guide for this year's specific planet visibility and the best moonless viewing nights from your latitude.
Butterflies & Pollinators
February remains a dormant butterfly month across nearly all of Missouri. The cold keeps the season on pause, and our butterflies are still overwintering as eggs, caterpillars, chrysalises, or hidden adults sheltered in bark crevices and leaf litter. The prairies, glades, and gardens stay empty of fliers through almost the entire month.
The one exception is the hardy adult overwinterers. On a genuinely warm, sunny afternoon late in February — especially in the southern Ozarks — a mourning cloak may rouse from behind loose bark and flap through the bare woods, dark with its pale-cream wing borders. The eastern comma and question mark can do the same in a strong thaw. These are the only butterflies with any real chance of appearing, and even then only on the warmest days; a cold snap sends them straight back into hiding.
To prepare for the season ahead: February is still planning time. Order or start native milkweed seed for monarchs (it needs a cold, moist period to sprout, so a winter start outdoors works well), and sketch out a nectar succession of coneflower, blazing star, wild bergamot, and asters so the butterfly garden is ready when the first real fliers emerge in March and April.
Trees This Month
February is when the Missouri tree year stirs, even though the hardwoods are still bare. The clearest sign is in the maples — sugar maple and silver maple sap begins to run on the freeze-thaw cycle of cold nights and mild days, and southern Missouri's small sugarbushes start tapping and boiling. It is the same rising sap that will soon swell the buds across the whole forest.
The flower buds are visibly fattening on the early bloomers. The silver maples in the river bottoms are often the first trees to flower, hanging their tiny reddish blossoms in late February before any leaves appear, and the American elms are not far behind. The evergreens still carry the winter green — dark eastern red cedar on the glades and fencerows, native shortleaf pine on the Ozark ridges. Watch the flowering dogwood, the state tree, holding its plump gray flower buds, and the eastern redbud with buds tight against its dark branches, both waiting for the warmth of April to transform the understory.
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: February in Montana · February in Nebraska · February in Nevada