Luke 2:5 to 2:8 says "He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night."
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2%3A1-20&version=NIV
Wikipedia (citing "New Testament History" by Richard L. Niswonger; "Luke: an introduction and commentary" by Leon Morris, and "Stories of Jesus' Birth" by Edwin D. Freed) says that: "Neither gospel account mentions the time of year during which the events they describe takes place. However, the Gospel of Luke reference to shepherds grazing their sheep in the fields has been taken to imply a birth during the springtime, summer or early fall."
Contained within here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Jesus#Nativity_accounts:_Luke_and_Matthew
Now, the link I provided up above regarding the passage from Luke doesn't say the sheep were necessarily grazing, but that the shepherds were "living out in fields" and were "keeping watch over their flock at night." I realize this could be a translation of whatever version of the bible that website is using.
In my own copy of the bible I have nearby, Luke 2:8 says "that night in the fields near Bethlehem some shepherds were guarding their sheep."
I have three different versions of what the shepherds were doing with their sheep.
One says "watching" the sheep
One says "grazing" the sheep
And the other says "guarding" the sheep.
I understand how grazing can imply spring, but I'm wondering how can the other two quotes imply a time of year? To me it seems more likely that it implies a time of day.
I looked through the FAQ's on Jesus for a bit before posting this, but I couldn't find answers to this question, so I hope it is not a bother considering there are many, many questions on the topic of Jesus . Thank you.
edit:
and now the grammar in the title is killing me.
Actually, not everyone agrees that even "grazing" implies spring. The climate of Bethlehem is moderate enough that sheep can be grazed outside through the winter:
William Hendriksen quotes a letter dated Jan. 16, 1967, received from the New Testament scholar Harry Mulder, then teaching in Beirut, in which the latter tells of being in Shepherd Field at Bethlehem on the just-passed Christmas Eve, and says: “Right near us a few flocks of sheep were nestled. Even the lambs were not lacking. . . . It is therefore definitely not impossible that the Lord Jesus was born in December” [Jack Finnegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (2nd ed.), no. 569, quoting Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Matthew (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973), 1:182; as quoted on apologist Jimmy Akin's blog].