California Nature Guide: December 2026
December is green, wet winter California — the hills are emerald, the Central Valley wetlands are jammed with waterfowl and cranes, the monarchs hang in their coastal groves, and the citrus season is in full glow. It is one of the richest wildlife months of the California year.
What to look for this week
- Snow geese, white-fronted geese, and pintail jam the Sacramento and San Joaquin valley refuges; sandhill cranes roost near Lodi and Cosumnes.
- San Joaquin Valley navel and Cara Cara oranges and easy-peel Satsuma mandarins are at their winter peak.
- Western monarchs hang in clustered curtains in the coastal groves at Pismo Beach, Pacific Grove, and Natural Bridges.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks around January 3 in a brief, sharp burst, best after midnight from a dark desert site.
Birds This Month
December is one of California's great birding months, the winter spectacle at its peak. The Central Valley refuges hold their maximum waterfowl — vast clouds of snow and Ross's geese, greater white-fronted geese, tundra swans in the northern valley, and dozens of duck species at Sacramento, San Joaquin, and the Klamath Basin. The sandhill cranes are at full winter strength at the Lodi and Cosumnes roosts, their dusk fly-ins a highlight of the season, and December is the heart of the Christmas Bird Count, when birders across the state tally the winter abundance.
The wintering land birds are settled: yellow-rumped warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets, and hermit thrushes are everywhere, the brush holds white- and golden-crowned sparrows, cedar waxwings swarm the berries, and varied thrushes haunt the coastal woods. Wintering raptors — bald eagles, ferruginous and the odd rough-legged hawk, merlins, and prairie falcons — hunt the open valley.
On the coast, the southbound gray whale migration peaks past Point Reyes and Monterey, wintering loons, grebes, scoters, and brant fill the bays, and the rocky shores hold black turnstones, surfbirds, and black oystercatchers. The state bird, the California quail, gathers in winter coveys.
This month's tip: join a local Christmas Bird Count or visit a Central Valley refuge at dawn — December offers both the camaraderie of the count and the sheer spectacle of the wintering geese and cranes at their peak abundance.
What's Blooming
December in California is green and quietly flowering, not bare. The winter rains have set the hills emerald, and the new growing year is well underway beneath the surface even as true wildflowers are still few. The early-blooming manzanitas are opening their urn-shaped pink-and-white bells across the chaparral, a crucial winter nectar source for hummingbirds and the season's first insects, and chamise and early ceanothus begin in the southern chaparral.
On warm days, the first California poppies open on sheltered south-facing slopes in the southern part of the state, and opportunistic natives like fiddleneck and wild cucumber (the vining manroot, now sprawling green over the chaparral with its white starry flowers) appear. In the low deserts, in a wet year, the earliest desert annuals can begin germinating and even flowering on the warmest flats, the first hint of a possible spring superbloom.
Where to look: the Southern California chaparral and coast are the earliest — walk a trail in the Santa Monica Mountains or along the coast and look for manzanita in bloom, the green flush of the rains, and the first poppies on warm slopes. The low deserts of Anza-Borrego hold the year's earliest desert wildflowers in a wet winter. This is the green, hopeful start of California's long bloom season.
Garden This Month
December keeps the mild-zone California garden productive while the dormant season's tasks begin. In the coast and valley, the cool-season vegetable garden carries on — harvest broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, kale, chard, and root crops, all sweetened by the cool, often rainy weather, and there is still time on the mild coast to sow another round of greens and peas. The year-round harvest is one of the joys of California gardening.
The bare-root planting season is now underway: nurseries stock dormant roses, deciduous fruit trees, grapevines, and cane berries, and getting them in the ground while dormant gives roots a head start. December is also the time to begin dormant fruit-tree care — prune apples, pears, and stone fruit, and apply the first dormant-oil and copper spray to peaches and nectarines to prevent peach leaf curl. Take advantage of the rains to plant California natives, skip irrigation, mulch beds against the occasional valley frost, and protect tender plants from a hard radiation freeze. In the Sierra, the garden sleeps under snow.
Zone 10a (mild coast, Los Angeles basin): the frost-free coast grows all winter — keep harvesting cool-season crops, plant bare-root stock and deciduous fruit, and sow another round of greens and peas. The mild marine climate makes December one of the easiest gardening months of the year here.
Zone 6b (Sierra Nevada): the mountain garden is dormant under cold and snow — there is little to do outdoors. Prune dormant fruit trees on dry days, keep mulch over perennials, protect any season-extension structures from heavy snow, and plan the short season ahead.
Zone 9b (Central Valley, inland Southern California): the cool-season garden carries on — harvest broccoli, lettuce, and greens, and plant bare-root roses, fruit trees, grapes, and cane berries as nurseries stock them. Begin dormant pruning of fruit trees and apply the first dormant-oil and copper spray to peaches and nectarines against leaf curl.
What's at the Farmers Market
December is citrus glory at the California market, the new winter crop in full flow. Navel oranges and the pink-fleshed Cara Caras are at their peak, joined by easy-peel Satsuma and Clementine mandarins, the first blood oranges, Meyer lemons, ruby grapefruit, and kumquats — the heart of California's enviable winter fruit season. Choose fruit heavy for its size with firm, glossy skin, and store citrus loose and cool, where it keeps for weeks.
The cool-season vegetables are at their sweetest, improved by the cold: broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts from the foggy Central Coast, cabbages, kale, chard, carrots, beets, leeks, and a wide range of lettuces. The last persimmons and pomegranates finish the fall fruit, and Hass avocados and fresh-crop nuts and olive oil round out the stalls.
For selection and storage: choose citrus heavy and firm-skinned and keep it cool and loose; pick greens with crisp, unwilted leaves and keep them dry; store carrots and beets with the tops trimmed off. December markets are a bright spot in winter — the sweet new citrus and the cold-improved brassicas make this one of the best produce months of the California year.
Night Sky This Month
December gives California its longest nights and, between the winter storms, some superb dark skies. The desert dark-sky destinations are at their cool-weather best — Death Valley (an International Dark Sky Park), Joshua Tree, and Anza-Borrego all offer crisp, transparent winter nights — and the public observatories at Mount Wilson and Lick sit under famously steady air. The winter solstice around December 21 brings the longest night and the earliest, longest darkness of the year, perfect for stargazing.
The brilliant winter sky owns the evening. Orion climbs the southeast, its belt pointing down to blue-white Sirius, the brightest star in the night, and up to orange Aldebaran and the Pleiades in Taurus. The great Winter Hexagon — Sirius, Procyon, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran, and Rigel — wheels across the sky, the richest, brightest array of the whole year.
The Geminid meteor shower peaks around December 14, the year's best and most reliable shower, capable of dozens of bright meteors an hour from a dark site. For this year's exact Geminid prospects relative to the moon and for planet positions, see the printable California night-sky guide.
Butterflies & Pollinators
December is the deep heart of the western monarch overwintering season, and California is one of the few states where this winter month still offers a butterfly spectacle. Monarchs hang in clustered curtains in the coastal groves at Pismo Beach, Pacific Grove, Santa Cruz's Natural Bridges, and dozens of sites along the Central and Southern California coast, riding out the winter in the shelter of the eucalyptus, Monterey pine, and Monterey cypress. On a sunny, mild December afternoon the groves come alive as monarchs leave the clusters to drink and bask — an unforgettable winter sight.
Away from the groves, very few butterflies fly. On the warmest coastal and Southern California afternoons the occasional gulf fritillary, cabbage white, or fiery skipper appears, and the mourning cloak and California tortoiseshell wait out the cold tucked into bark and woodpiles, ready to emerge on the first warm days of late winter.
To help them: the single most important December act is protecting the coastal overwintering groves — these specific stands of trees are irreplaceable to the western monarch population, and the count of clustering monarchs each winter is a key measure of the species' health. Visit respectfully, never disturb the resting clusters, and in the garden leave the leaf litter and woodpiles that shelter the few hardy butterflies through the cold.
Trees This Month
December divides California's trees into the dormant and the evergreen, all of them now drinking the winter rains. The deciduous trees stand bare — the great valley oaks are leafless and sculptural over the green Central Valley, the foothill black oaks, cottonwoods, and sycamores are stripped down, and the orchard trees of the valley wait dormant for their late-winter bloom. The California buckeye stands bare with its hanging pods, biding its time until the earliest leaf-out of late winter.
The evergreens that define California carry the green of the season. The coast redwoods and giant sequoias drink the welcome winter rains — the sequoias now standing deep in fresh Sierra snow, the snowpack that will feed the state's rivers through the coming dry year. The coast live oaks, blue oaks (now leafless on the dry slopes), Pacific madrones with their ripe red berries, and the pines and firs of the mountains hold their canopies through the wet, green California winter. By month's end, in a warm year, the first almond buds in the valley begin, almost imperceptibly, to swell toward the February bloom.
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Same month elsewhere: December in Colorado · December in Connecticut · December in Delaware