What to look for in nature in Alabama this November

When do sandhill cranes and ducks arrive in Alabama?

• Sandhill cranes at Wheeler

  First arrivals early to mid-November; peak late December into early January; most gone by mid-February · Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, on Wheeler Lake between Decatur and Huntsville

  The Wheeler Wildlife Refuge Association says the refuge’s sandhill cranes nest around the Great Lakes and in southern Canada and start showing up around the start of November; its visitor FAQ puts the average arrival in mid-November. The flock is a recent and fast-growing one: cranes first wintered here in the early 1990s, the refuge counted about 20,000 in the winter of 2017–18, and the 2023–24 season set a record of more than 30,000. The cranes spend the night at a roost, come in near the visitor center after sunrise and leave again in late afternoon, so the middle of the day is the best time and you do not need to be there at dawn. Listen first: a flock’s rolling, wooden bugling carries a long way, often before you can pick out the birds. Adults stand about four and a half feet tall, gray with a red crown.

• Ducks, geese and a new sanctuary at Wheeler

  Numbers rise all month; the duck peak usually comes in January · Wheeler refuge ponds, sloughs and the Tennessee River

  The refuge’s own month-by-month notes say waterfowl and crane numbers keep climbing through November even as the songbirds leave, and that big gatherings of great blue herons and hawks are common then. New this year: starting Sunday, November 15, 2026, and lasting through February, the refuge shuts a 335-acre block as a quiet sanctuary for the ducks, and about a mile of road with it; walkers and cyclists keep the surrounding trails. The visitor center and the Wildlife Observation Building, which overlooks a pond beside it, are the easiest places to watch without disturbing anything.

• Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge

  Waterfowl build from November into winter · On both banks of the Chattahoochee River, about 7 miles north of Eufaula

  In the Wiregrass, the 11,184-acre Eufaula refuge straddles the Alabama–Georgia line on Lake Eufaula and was set aside for wintering waterfowl. Next door, Lakepoint State Park runs naturalist programs through the month, including an evening walk on November 13 about how alligators slow down and dig in for the cold.

• Bald eagles on the big lakes

  Late November onward · Lake Martin, Lake Guntersville, Gulf State Park

  The state parks schedule eagle watching as the weather cools: Wind Creek State Park, on Lake Martin near Alexander City, holds a long-range eagle scan from its clubhouse at 10 a.m. on Saturday, November 28, and Gulf State Park leads an “Eagles and Ecosystems” walk on its Eagle Loop trail on November 12 and November 30. Scan the tops of tall dead pines along the shore; an adult’s white head shows from far off, while young eagles are mottled brown for their first four or five years.

Where are the leaves still turning in Alabama in November?

• The last of the ridge-top color

  First week or so of November · Cheaha State Park, DeSoto State Park, Little River Canyon, Monte Sano

  By early November the poplars and maples on the high ridges are past peak and the oaks take over in rust, red-brown and dull gold, often lasting into the second week. Cheaha State Park runs a guided Fall Foliage Hike from the Bald Rock Boardwalk trailhead at noon on Saturday, November 7. A windy cold front can strip a ridge in one night, so go early in the month and check the forecast map first.

• Copper cypress in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta

  Late November, around Thanksgiving · Meaher State Park boardwalk, Spanish Fort; delta creeks and bayous

  Bald cypress is that odd thing, a needle-bearing tree that goes bare in winter, and before it does, the soft green sprays turn copper and then a warm brick red. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center times that “terra cotta” color to around Thanksgiving. The Mobile-Tensaw Delta, which Alabama State Parks calls the second-largest delta in the lower 48 states, is the place to see it; the boardwalk at Meaher State Park, on the Causeway at Spanish Fort, reaches into the marsh, and the gate fee is $3 a person. A kayak up any delta creek shows you the knees, the cone-shaped roots that stick up out of the water around each tree.

• Beeches and oaks that keep their leaves

  From November into spring · Ravines and stream slopes statewide

  Once the other trees are bare, look for the pale tan leaves still rattling on young American beeches and on many oaks. The Wildflower Center notes that beech leaves turn copper in fall and hold on through most of the winter, a habit called marcescence. It is easiest to see on small understory beeches in shady hollows, which glow almost white when the low sun comes through them.

• Persimmons ripen

  Fruit colors late September to November; best after the first frost · Old fields, fencerows and woods edges statewide

  Wild persimmons hang orange on bare branches after the leaves fall. Unripe fruit is so full of tannin that it puckers the mouth, and the Wildflower Center notes that it is not good to eat until frost or a run of cold nights has softened it. Foxes, opossums, raccoons, deer and many birds eat them first, and fresh scat full of flat brown persimmon seeds under a tree tells you who has been visiting.

Which birds come to Alabama feeders in winter?

• Winter hummingbirds

  Reported November 15 to March 1; most turn up in December to February · Feeders and late flowers, mainly on the Gulf Coast

  Each winter a scattering of hummingbirds, mostly western species, fly east instead of south and spend the cold months in the Southeast. ADCNR lists the rufous hummingbird as rare to uncommon in winter in the Gulf Coast region and rare inland. Long-term banding shows how regular they are: a study of hummingbirds wintering in south Alabama and north Florida from 2008 to 2018 banded nearly 1,900 birds of 11 species, roughly half of them rufous, with ruby-throated and black-chinned the next most common. The Banding Coalition of the Americas, based in Foley, asks “Hummer Hosts” to keep at least one feeder out and to report any hummingbird that visits between November 15 and March 1; its Project HUMMER page lists a bander to contact for each state. A feeder does not hold a bird back from migrating; it feeds one that is already in the area.

• The 2026–27 winter finch forecast

  Through the winter · Feeders and pine and sweetgum woods statewide

  Published on September 25, the Finch Research Network’s annual outlook says not to expect big irruptions of any of the finches in the southeastern states this winter. Pine siskins may make a small to moderate flight toward the Southeast, so watch the thistle feeder for streaky, sharp-billed goldfinch look-alikes with yellow in the wings. Any purple finch flight will be a late, small one at best, and good cone crops in the North should keep most red-breasted nuthatches there.

• Project FeederWatch

  November 1, 2026, to April 30, 2027 · Your own yard

  The Cornell Lab’s FeederWatch season opens on November 1. Choose two consecutive count days, as often as once a week, write down the biggest flock of each kind you see together, and post the numbers online; a participation fee applies.

What is happening on the Alabama coast in November?

• Flounder: the month of no harvest

  Closed November 1–30 · All Alabama waters

  Southern flounder pour out of Mobile Bay and the coastal lagoons through the passes as the water cools, heading to deeper Gulf water to spawn, and ADCNR’s regulations close flounder season for the whole of November to let them go. Anglers can still fish for red drum, with a 16- to 26-inch slot and a limit of three, and speckled trout. If a flounder comes up on the line this month, slip it back quickly; from December 1 the limit is again five fish of at least 14 inches.

• Gulf State Park programs

  Through November · Gulf State Park, Gulf Shores

  The park’s naturalists lead a guided walk on the saltwater pier on November 13 and November 20 at 9 a.m., a beach walk on coastal plants and animals on November 3 and 16, and a live birds of prey program at the nature center on November 23. Most need registration through the state parks’ program calendar.

What are deer, salamanders and alligators doing in Alabama in November?

• Deer: rubs, scrapes and an early rut in some herds

  Signs build all month; most of the state breeds later · Statewide

  Alabama’s deer are famous for a late and uneven rut. ADCNR says research has found average conception dates around Thanksgiving in some herds, and in mid-December, early January or even early February in others, with most of the state peaking in mid- to late January. November is when bucks mark their ground: look for saplings with the bark scraped raw at knee to waist height, and bare, pawed patches of soil under an overhanging branch, which bucks scent with their foreheads and urine. Lakepoint State Park, in Eufaula, has a family program on buck behavior at 5:30 p.m. on November 13.

• Marbled salamanders on the move

  October and November, on rainy nights · Dry pond basins and low spots in hardwood forests statewide

  Most salamanders breed in spring, but the marbled salamander breeds in the fall. ADCNR says Alabama’s marbled salamanders mate in October and November, and the female lays her eggs on dry ground in a hollow that will flood later, then curls around them to keep them damp until winter rains fill the basin; the eggs hatch within a day or two of going under water. Stout, black and three to five inches long, it wears bold white bands if male and silvery-gray ones if female. Look on warm, wet nights, and if you lift a log, put it back exactly as it was.

• Alligators slow down

  As water temperatures fall · Lake Eufaula, the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and southern lakes and swamps

  As the water cools, alligators eat less and less and spend sunny afternoons basking on banks. Lakepoint State Park’s naturalists describe how they also dig “gator holes” to wait out the cold, and on a mild winter day one may still haul out to bask.

When does Alabama usually get its first freeze?

How much daylight does Alabama lose in November?

What is November weather like in Alabama, and what does El Niño mean for the winter?

What can you see in the night sky over Alabama in November?

• The Leonids

  Best before dawn on Wednesday, November 18; also the mornings of the 17th and 19th · Look high in the east and south after midnight

  The International Meteor Organization puts this year’s Leonid peak on November 17, with about 15 meteors an hour under ideal skies and no outburst expected. The half-lit Moon goes down shortly after midnight, and Leo, where the meteors seem to come from, rises around 11 p.m. to midnight and climbs until dawn, so the dark hours from about 1 a.m. to the first light around 5:30 are the ones to watch. Leonids strike the air at tremendous speed, and the bright ones sometimes paint a faint smoky line that lingers after the flash.

• The Taurids and their fireballs

  Southern Taurids peak about November 5; Northern Taurids about November 12 · High in the sky most of the night

  Both Taurid streams are debris from Comet Encke. Neither gives more than about 5 to 10 an hour, yet their meteors drift slowly, and a Taurid fireball can light the yard. The new moon of November 9 leaves the nights between the two peaks dark.

• The Beaver Moon, a supermoon

  Evenings of Monday, November 23, and Tuesday, November 24 · Rising in the east-northeast around sunset

  The Moon is full at 8:53 a.m. Central on Tuesday the 24th and reaches perigee about 30 hours afterward, so this is a modest supermoon, slightly bigger and brighter than average. Late on Monday the 23rd, and on toward Tuesday’s dawn, it slides close by the Pleiades, but moonlight will wash out all but the brightest of the Seven Sisters. December’s full moon, on the 23rd, is the closer one.

• A crowded morning sky

  Before dawn all month · East and south before sunrise

  Venus is now a morning object, a little higher at each dawn, and it reaches its greatest brilliancy around November 24 to 27. Jupiter and Mars ride together in Leo: on the mornings of Sunday the 15th and Monday the 16th the two sit about one degree from each other, both inside a single binocular field. Low in the east-southeast, Mercury adds itself to the lineup on the best mornings, roughly November 18 to 25, in the brightening dawn. After dusk the evening sky offers just one bright planet, Saturn, in the south. Uranus is at opposition on November 25, just within reach of binoculars near the Pleiades for anyone with a star chart and dark skies.

What can Alabama families do outside in November 2026?

Safety notes for November in Alabama