Things to Do This Winter

Build a simple, inexpensive solar cooker as described at SolarCooking.org.
Global climate change is profoundlly affecting the Earth's biosphere. See the latest data available at the NASA Global Climate Change website".
Build a bluebird nest box for next spring, as described on our Birdbox Page.
Find a lichen, as described on our Lichen Page, and figure out whether it is crustose, foliose or fruticose.
If you have a camera, about 5 feet from a bird feeder, place a cardboard box or some other structure large enough for you to hide in. After the birds become accustomed to this "wildlife observation blind" (maybe a couple of days), go inside, then take a close look at what visits the birdbath. Birds can count up to "one," so you may need a friend to go with you to the box. You enter the box, then your friend leaves. The birds will see "one" person go to the birdbath, and "one" return, so then they'll know the coast is clear for them!
In your basement or some other damp, slightly junky place, look for "thousand leggers." Are they centipedes, millipedes or maybe sowbugs? Our Centipedes, Millipedes & Pill Bugs Page can help you decide.
Look for squirrels around your house or in the local park. What kind of squirrels are they? Our Squirrel Page may be able to help.
Identify your neighborhood plants and animals using the procedure outlined in Step One of our "3 Steps to Discovering Nature," and document your discoveries on the wonderful iNaturalist.Org website.
Find a feather and identify these parts of it: shaft, vane, barbs, and barbules. Our Feather Page can help.
Report what Nature in doing in your part of the world by reporting phenological observations -- notes about seasonal things, such as when plants flower and fruit, birds nest, frogs croak, etc.. Check to see if there are programs monitoring your area at Globe.Gov
Find out where your house's water comes from. Does your town have its own well, or take water from a reservoir or river? If your water comes from a reservoir or river, does the water seem clean to you, and free of chemical pollutants? Are you content with your water situation? If not, what are you going to do about it?
Understand your weather better. A good place to begin is MetOffice.Com's Understanding Weather page
Find out the geological age of the land on which you live. You may need to consult a geology map of the kind described on our Geological Processes Page.
Look for fungi. When you find a fungus, figure out what kind it is. Our Fungus Section can help.
Start a Nature Study Notebook, either on paper or on your computer. Our "Nature Journal" page can help you get started." offers some pointers for getting started.
On the Internet, check out what pops up when you do a search on keywords like "books nature" and "books fungi."
Get involved with local efforts to save the environment and meet others who enjoy learning about nature. Check out our Get Involved Section, which gives links to environmental groups on the Web.
List all the birds in your neighborhood. The "how to birdwatch" part of our bird section can get you started.
Once you have your birdlist, note next to each species' name what kind of beak it has. Various beak types are described on our Bird Beaks Page.
And once you have some birds listed, listen to their songs at the US Government Patuxent birdsong page.
When you eat fried chicken, pay attention to the bones and realize what part of the chicken's body you are eating. You might want to compare your chicken bones with those of the pigeon at our Bird Bones & Muscles Page.
Browse some online, nature- and science-oriented technical journals. We have a list of some at the bottom of our Scientific Journals Page.
Be sure you know how helpful the Google Image Search function is for identifying your local plants and animals. At the link, do a search using well selected key words for something you want to identify in a specific area, such as "Kentucky salamander black" and see if any of the resulting thumbnails match what you're trying to identify.
Check out Frequently Asked Questions about Global Warming provided by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Check out the US Environmental Protection Agency's page on " Games, Quizzes and Other Cool Stuff!"
Find a bean, maybe a dried bean in your kitchen, and notice its hilum. Separate its two faces, and inside the bean identify the plumule, radicle and hypocotyl. Our Seeds Page can help you.
Watch the world population grow at the Worldometers page, and see a breakdown of population by countries.
In local gardens, hedges, weedy places and woods, look for insect pupae, as described on our Insect Pupae Page. Once you find one, mark it with a ribbon or other object, then watch it as spring emerges and try to see the adult emerge.
If you know the common name of an organism, usually you can find the scientific name, or binomial, by searching with the Google Search Engine using keywords such as "striped skunk binomial." Try it out.
Download some free nature books from Project Gutenberg. Look for writings by John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Darwin and Jack London.
Calculate your Ecological Footprint at the World Wildlife Fund's Footprint page website.
Read Naturalist Jim Conrad's Yellow Ribbon: One Year in the Life of a House Sparrow, a story in which Yellow Ribbon, though she has many adventures, behaves in ways that a real House Sparrow might in nature.
Learn to identify your local trees just by looking at their trunks. Our Tree Bark Page can help you organize your thoughts about this.
Understand your local weather by looking at clouds, seeing weather maps, etc. The ThoughtCo.Com Weather and Climate Page can help you.
If you had to personally kill the animals providing the flesh you eat each day, would you do it? Is it moral for you to simply pay others to kill the animals you eat? Think about these questions. You might be interested in the Vegetarian Resource Group's Guides & Handouts site.
Take a book-trip with Naturalist Jim by downloading and reading the notes from his 1996 birding trip from one end of Mexico to the other. Download here.
From a local pond or ditch, take a jar of water and set it in a window where it gets some sunlight. Over the weeks watch what happens to it...
At the "All About Birds" website, chose a live cam and watch what birds are doing at this very moment.
Catch up on the latest nature news at ScienceDaily.Com's Nature News page.
Find an acorn -- an oak-tree's fruit. If you're not sure sure what to look for, see the Water Oak acorn in the "nut" section of our Simple Fruits Page.
To get ready for spring, familiarize yourself with the ten most conspicuous insect orders by finding members of each of them. Our Insect Orders Page can help you.
Find a pine cone and look for its seeds. Our Conifer Page shows a typical pine cone with some seeds next to it.
Winter time is when you start thinking about next spring producing a backyard garden. Your success as a gardener depends very much on growing plants suitable for your region's climate. On the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map for the US, see what Hardiness Zone you live in, then on the Internet find which plants will do best in your zone, for example at the Gardenia.Net website.
On a tree twig where the leaf has recently fallen, locate the leafscar, bud and bundle scars, as described on our Woody Twigs Page.
If your neighborhood has outcropping sedimentary rocks, or if there is rounded streambed gravel available, look for fossils. Visit our Fossil Page.
Identify a tree using the free, online DiscoverLife.Org Key to Trees.
In moist, shaded, undisturbed places, look for mosses in their spore-producing condition. Using the diagram on our Mosses Page, identify a moss's calyptra, capsule, stalk, leaves and rhizoids.
Identify just one thing in your backyard -- maybe a bird or a rock or tree -- and then use the Google search engine to find out all you can about it. You'll just be amazed at what you can learn!
List all the ecological niches you can identify in your backyard. Our Backyard Niches Page can get you started.
Once you've made the above list, write down each species you can identify occupying each niche, and describe what the organisms are doing there.
Look very closely at any sand or streambed gravel you can find. Try to see tiny crystals, as described on our Minerals Page. Especially if you have a magnifying glass you should at least see glass-like quartz crystals.
Notice that most but not all fallen leaves display "bilateral symmetry" as described mideway down one of our Leaf Pages.
Order a geology map for your state at the USGS State Map Page, and start learning your local geology, and why the landscape looks the way it does. To start, click on your state.
Find a fruit of any kind, even if it's at the local supermarket, and decide what kind it is. Our Fruit Page can help you decide whether it's a simple, aggregate or multiple fruit, and if it's a simple one (as most fruits are) what kind of simple fruit.
If you have a special interest, such as birds, wildflowers, spiders, or whatever, consider joining an "e-group" such as those found at the Reddit.Com platform. Just go there, type your subject into the search box, and if you see a group you like, join it.
Find a woody plant with spines or thorns and try to figure out why it has them. Remember that plants evolved long ago when often large herbivores such as bison, wild horses and mastodons wandered the land. Of course we have a nice Plant Spines Page.
Look for animal tracks in mud. You should be able to identify at least dog tracks, as drawn on our Mammal Tracks Page. A good book to help you is the Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America.
On tree twigs, look for lenticels (tiny "windows" in twigs that let in air) as described on our Woody Twigs Page.
Read Naturalist Jim Conrad's short online book Walks With Red Dog, about being with a dog in the countryside.
Collect animals sounds on your computer's hard disk. Using an Internet search engine, type in keywords such as "bullfrog audio" or "cricket audio." When your audio player is finished playing the sound, click on File/ Save As.., then place the file in a folder or subdirectory where you can find it later.
To get ready for spring, become an official frogwatcher. For details visit the Frogwatch USA website.
Browse current environmental news issued by the UK's The Guardian newspaper.
If you can find one of those old, out-of-date, 8-ft-wide TV satellite dishes, convert it to a solar cooker, as described here.
When you go onto the Internet for the first time each day, check out NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. This will help you keep things here on Earth in perspective.
List all the trees in your neighborhood, using twig and bark characteristics, and leaves and fruits that may be lying on the ground. Our page on backyard trees can help. You may also want to look at our pages on twigs and tree bark. The Discoverlife.Org Tree Guide may be able to help you.
Check out the BBC's 'Science & Environment News'
Start a rock collection. Our rock section can get you oriented.
In the night sky, learn these constellations: The Big Dipper (Ursa Major), The Little Dipper (Ursa Minor), Leo the Lion, Boötes the Herdsman, Hercules, Corona Borealis, and Draco the Dragon. One book to help you is The Sky Observer's Guide: A Handbook for Amateur Astronomers
Read Naturalist Jim Conrad's Mistletoe: One Year in the Life of a Gray Squirrel, a story in which Mistletoe, though she has many adventures, behaves in ways that a real Gray Squirrel might in nature.