As you're putting together your New Year resolutions, you might want to add “Join Project FeederWatch.” This citizen-science effort is one of the most important studies of the health of birds in North America. It's also easy, just an hour or two a week, on two different days. Download the FeederWatch app, and it will help you record the birds you see and send in the results. FeederWatch runs through April, and it's your opportunity to be a part of something really important.

Right: A Cedar Waxwing stretches for a berry (Laura Frazier, Project Feederwatch)

What is “suet?” Suet is birds' life insurance against the cold and dry weather of the winter. It is basically peanut butter with added fat and nutrients that can make the difference between thriving or just surviving through the cold weather. Nuthatches, Woodpeckers and tiny Bushtits all are enthusiastic suet eaters.

Left: A Downy Woodpecker enjoying suet (Errol Taskin, Project Feederwatch)

Downy Woodpeckers especially can use the extra calories of suet, because they already are getting ready for spring. You may well hear them drumming and drilling, working on the 1 1/4-inch doors for their nests in hollow trees. Downy Woodpeckers are both our smallest (at just 6½ inches) and most widespread woodpeckers, ranging from north Baja to Point Concepcion.

Most of the year, Bluebirds and Black Phoebes are our most enthusiastic consumers of live worms, but in the winter, Yellow-rumped Warblers are as likely to crowd your worm feeders. They also will dip into your water source and peck at your suet feeders, showing off the little dab of yellow at the base of their tails.

Right: A Yellow-Rumped Warbler perches and shows its dab of yellow

As nesting and hatching season approaches, celebrity Bald Eagles, Jackie and Shadow of Big Bear Lake, are slowly restoring their huge nest and, more important, have been observed mating on one of their favorite perches. Other bald eagles in SoCal, specifically those on Santa Catalina and the Channel Islands, also are hard at work, making sure their nests are ready for eggs, which are expected this month and February. Two nests on Catalina and two on Santa Cruz have 24-hour live nest cams.

Trails along coastal estuaries, such as the walks along the Venice canals and at Malibu Lagoon, are among the best places to observe Great Blue Herons and their cousins, the big white Great Egrets. Both birds are impressively tall, three and one-half to four feet, as they wade in shallow water, hunting small fish. Small flocks of smaller Snowy Egrets (24 inches), join them in the shallows, also stalking small fish. If there are large trees near the estuary, the herons may build their large flat nests, laying eggs in January.

Left: Great Blue Heron strikes a pose (Larry Naylor)

Despite the cool weather, Anna's Hummingbirds already have been nesting, and some of their chicks are ready to fledge this month. Keep feeders full and clean, so the new hummingbirds can fuel up for cold nights.

January 16 to 20 is the Morro Bay Birding Festival, a major birding meet. This festival offers 250 events ranging from competitive Big Days to relaxed bird walks, in-depth master classes and habitat walks. The event appeals to birders, nature lovers and photographers.

If you're planning a trip out to the desert, on Jan. 2, you can see this year's Quadrantid Meteor Shower. At their height Jan. 2 to 3, the Quarantids produce up to 60 meteors per hour and average 25 at a dark site. In fact, some of the Quarantids show up in the week before New Year, so you can see some of the show New Year eve.