What to look for in nature in Florida this October

When do peregrine falcons pour through the Florida Keys?

When do monarchs reach St. Marks and the rest of Florida?

When does the dry season start, and is it still hurricane season?

What is happening along the coast: manatees, sea turtles, mullet and red tide?

• Manatees, not quite yet

  Warm-water sites fill in November; viewing centers open Nov 1 and Nov 15 · Springs, power-plant outfalls, coastal rivers

  Manatees cannot tolerate water below about 68 °F for long, but in October the bays and rivers are still warm, so most of Florida’s 8,350 or more are spread out feeding. They crowd into springs and power-plant outfalls as the November fronts chill the water, and the calendar follows: Tampa Electric’s Manatee Viewing Center at Apollo Beach opens November 1 (free, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), the Three Sisters Springs programs at Crystal River refuge start November 15, and many seasonal slow-speed manatee zones take effect the same day. Report sick, injured or dead manatees to the FWC Wildlife Alert line, 888-404-FWCC.

• The last sea turtle hatchlings

  Nesting season ends October 31 · Every sandy coast; the Atlantic beaches from Brevard to Palm Beach most of all

  Florida’s sea turtle nesting season ends October 31, and the FWC’s beach-lighting guidance runs to that date because late nests are still hatching. Loggerheads nest from April to September, and Florida beaches hold about 90 percent of the northwest Atlantic population’s nests, most of them from Brevard to Palm Beach; Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge protects what the Fish and Wildlife Service calls the most significant loggerhead nesting area in the world. Hatchlings steer for the brightest horizon, so until month’s end keep beach lights low, long-wavelength and shielded, keep flashlights off the sand at night, and fill in holes. Call 888-404-FWCC about a stranded one rather than carrying it to the water.

• The mullet run

  Fall into winter; the heavy weeks vary · Atlantic surf and inlets, Gulf passes

  Striped mullet live in the bays and rivers and, in the FWC’s words, “migrate offshore in large schools to spawn” in fall and winter; in the Gulf they spawn 40 to 50 miles out. From shore that is the mullet run: dark schools pushing along the Atlantic surf and out through the Gulf passes, with tarpon, snook, sharks and pelicans in pursuit. The timing shifts with the fronts; the morning after a north wind is a good time for a pier or an inlet jetty.

• Horseshoe crabs on the tide

  Spring and fall peaks; high tides near the Oct 10 new moon and Oct 26 full moon · Sandy beaches inside bays and lagoons

  Horseshoe crabs can nest in any month in Florida, but the FWC says spring and fall are the peaks and that “most nesting activity takes place during high tides around the time of a new or full moon”: this month, around October 10 and October 26. Look for pairs at the waterline, the smaller male holding onto the female’s shell, and report them to the FWC’s Florida Horseshoe Crab Watch.

• Red tide

  Blooms most often start in late summer and early fall · Gulf coast, mostly southwest Florida

  Blooms of Karenia brevis, Florida red tide, most often start “in late summer and early fall” and can last “through winter to spring,” almost always on the Gulf side. With an onshore breeze it can mean coughing and stinging eyes, and it makes local shellfish unsafe. Check the FWC’s daily sample map before a Gulf beach day.

• Right whales: not yet

  November to April · Atlantic coast, Fernandina Beach to Cape Canaveral

  North Atlantic right whales are “typically sighted off Florida between November and April,” when the waters off Florida and Georgia serve as the only known calving ground for a species of about 380. Federal rules keep boats, boards, kayaks and drones 500 yards away. Fernandina Beach welcomes them back with its free Right Whale Festival at Main Beach Park on November 7 and 8.

When do sandhill cranes, ducks and the other winter birds arrive?

• Sandhill cranes

  First flocks late in the month at best; the crowds in November and December · Paynes Prairie, the Kissimmee prairies, cattle country

  Florida keeps 4,000 to 5,000 resident sandhill cranes, and about 25,000 greater sandhills from the Great Lakes join them each winter. The FWC puts their arrival in November and December; at Paynes Prairie near Gainesville the migrants stay from November to March, seen by the hundreds from the La Chua Trail. In October, listen for the first flocks: the rolling, rattling call carries far and often arrives before you can see the birds.

• Teal now, the rest of the ducks later

  Blue-winged teal since September; the main arrivals with the November fronts · Refuge impoundments, lakes, the St. Johns marshes

  Blue-winged teal have been here since September; the FWC’s early teal season ran September 19 to 23. Most wintering ducks follow the November fronts, and the regular duck season opens November 21. Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, with its managed impoundments, and St. Marks, set aside in 1931 “to provide winter habitat for migratory birds” along 43 miles of Gulf coast, are where to watch the numbers build.

• Bald eagles back at the nest

  Pairs usually return in the fall; Florida’s eagles nest in the cool months · The tallest pine near any lake, river or shoreline

  Florida has “one of the densest concentrations of nesting bald eagles in the lower 48 states, with an estimated 1,500 nesting pairs,” and has monitored them since 1972. Here eagles nest through the cool months rather than in spring, so fall is when pairs usually reclaim their territories and begin adding sticks. Audubon Florida’s EagleWatch takes reports of new nests.

• Songbirds on the coasts

  All month; the big mornings follow fronts · Long Key, Cape Florida, Fort De Soto, the Gulf barrier islands, any coastal hammock

  On every Florida coast the pattern is the same: warblers, thrushes, vireos and buntings migrate at night and drop into the first trees they reach at dawn, so the morning after a front is the time to be in a coastal hammock or a barrier-island park. World Migratory Bird Day falls on Saturday, October 10, and the 2026 theme, “Every Bird Counts – Your Observations Matter!”, is a nudge to enter your list in eBird.

What are scrub-jays, bears, alligators and lovebugs doing in October?

• Florida scrub-jays bury the acorn crop

  September to November · Scrub: Ocala National Forest, Merritt Island, Oscar Scherer, the Lake Wales Ridge

  Florida’s only endemic bird spends the autumn burying acorns. Archbold Biological Station reports that one jay caches “between six and eight thousand acorns” between September and November, pushing each into the sand and often covering it, then digging them up and re-hiding them through the winter, when insects and lizards are scarce. A jay crossing a fire lane with a bulging throat is on that job.

• Black bears in hyperphagia

  All month; fall is the peak season for bears on roads · Ocala, Apalachicola, Osceola, Big Cypress, and the suburbs beside them

  Florida has about 4,050 black bears, and in fall they are in hyperphagia. BearWise describes bears foraging “up to 20 hours a day” and gaining “two to three pounds a day” on acorns, nuts and berries, including saw palmetto fruit. The FWC’s advice: trash out on the morning of pickup, not the night before; bird feeders 10 feet up and 10 feet out from anything a bear can climb, or brought inside; ripe fruit picked and windfalls cleared; pets fed indoors; grills cleaned. At dusk on rural roads, slow down and watch the shoulders for eyeshine.

• Alligators, still on duty

  Active on warm days; harvest season through Nov 1 · Every one of the 67 counties

  Alligators are “most active when temperatures are between 82° to 92° F” and “stop feeding when the ambient temperature drops below approximately 70° F,” so October afternoons in the 80s keep them busy. This summer’s hatchlings, out since mid-August, stay in the shallows near their mother. Florida has about 1.3 million alligators, in all 67 counties. The statewide harvest runs August 15 to November 1, mostly at night, so expect boats and lights on public lakes. Report a gator that worries you to 866-FWC-GATOR; handling one yourself is illegal.

• Snakes

  Active on warm days all month · Everywhere; water edges for cottonmouths

  Florida has about 50 native snakes, six of them venomous: the eastern diamondback, timber and pygmy rattlesnakes, the cottonmouth, the coral snake and the copperhead, the last mostly in the Panhandle. UF/IFAS advice covers all of them: “it is best not to attempt to capture, harass, or harm any snake.” Watch where you put hands and feet near logs, palmetto and water, and keep Poison Control, 1-800-222-1222, in your phone.

• Lovebugs, the tail of the fall flight

  Early October, fading · Highways, gas stations, anything pale and warm

  The late-summer lovebug flight lasts only a few weeks, so early October catches its tail. UF/IFAS stresses that they “do not bite, sting, or transmit diseases.” They swarm highways because exhaust chemistry and heat attract them, and they fly only once the air passes about 68 °F. Wash them off the car within a day.

• Deer: the most variable rut in the country

  October in parts of the central peninsula; earlier south, later north · Statewide

  The FWC says “Florida has more variability in breeding than any other state, from July in southern Florida to February in northwest Florida.” Its breeding-chronology map shows October dates in parts of the central peninsula, so look for fresh buck rubs on young trees and pawed scrapes in the leaf litter, and check the map for your county.

Does Florida ever freeze in October?

How much shorter are the days by Halloween?

What is in the sky over Florida this October?

• The Moon hides Jupiter

  Tuesday, October 6, about 4:16 to 5:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 to 4:12 a.m. CDT) · East; the Moon is 6 to 13 degrees up at the start and 18 to 24 at the end

  The thin crescent, about a fifth lit, is already up when Jupiter disappears behind its bright edge: about 4:16 a.m. in Tallahassee, 4:17 in Jacksonville and Gainesville, 4:18 in Tampa and Orlando, 4:19 in Fort Myers, 4:20 in West Palm Beach, 4:21 in Miami and 4:22 in Key West (3:15 a.m. Central in Pensacola, where the Moon is only 6 degrees up, so find a clear eastern horizon). The planet returns from the dark edge, with the Moon higher and the sky still dark, at 5:06 a.m. in Key West, 5:09 in Miami, 5:10 in Fort Myers, 5:11 in West Palm Beach, 5:12 in Tampa, 5:13 in Orlando, 5:14 in Tallahassee and Gainesville and 5:15 in Jacksonville (4:12 a.m. Central in Pensacola). The reappearance is easier to catch: a bright point switching on beside the unlit edge.

• The Hunter’s Moon

  Sunday, October 25, rising before sunset; full at 12:12 a.m. Monday · Low in the east at dusk; find a beach, a lake or a prairie

  The Hunter’s Moon is the full moon after the Harvest Moon. In Orlando it rises at 6:17 p.m. on the 25th, about half an hour before the 6:46 sunset, and at 6:58 p.m. on the 26th; in Pensacola it rises at 5:38 p.m. Central on the 25th, before a 6:07 sunset. It is not a supermoon by the strict full-moon-at-perigee definition.

• Orionid meteors

  Peak October 21–22, between moonset and dawn · Face southeast, anywhere dark

  The Orionids run October 2 to November 7 and peak broadly on October 21 and 22, at 10 to 20 an hour under dark skies. In Orlando the waxing gibbous moon sets about 2:55 a.m. on the 21st and 3:53 a.m. on the 22nd (3:16 a.m. Central on the 22nd in Pensacola), leaving two to three hours of real darkness before dawn twilight. On the 23rd moonset slips to 4:51 a.m. and the chance is mostly gone. Kissimmee Prairie, the Big Cypress and the quieter Panhandle beaches have Florida’s darkest skies.

• Draconid meteors

  Evening of Thursday, October 8, right after dark · Look north, low

  A thin shower, perhaps ten an hour at best, but it comes in the evening and two days before new moon, so there is no moonlight. Draco is low in the north from Florida, and a clear northern horizon helps. It is a good one to try with children before bed.

• Saturn all night

  Opposition October 4; the Moon beside it October 23–24 · Rising in the east at sunset

  Saturn reaches opposition on October 4, rising at sunset and up all night, the brightest point in the faint stretch between Pisces and Cetus. The gibbous Moon sits beside it on October 23 and 24.

• Venus leaves; Jupiter and Mars rule the morning

  Venus only the first evenings; Jupiter and Mars before dawn · Low in the west at dusk; east before dawn

  Venus is a low spark in the western twilight for only the first few evenings of October before it passes between Earth and the sun on October 23. Jupiter and Mars are both in the eastern sky before dawn all month, and on the morning of October 11 Mars crosses the Beehive star cluster in Cancer, a fine sight in binoculars.

What is blooming, fruiting and turning in Florida in October?

• Muhly grass

  Fall; the pink peak is now · Pine flatwoods, coastal uplands, highway medians and the plantings that copy them

  The plant that stops traffic in October is a native grass. UF/IFAS: “In fall, muhly grass produces fluffy pink to purple flower stalks that can reach up to 5 feet tall,” and it “is naturally found in Florida’s pine flatwoods, coastal uplands, and even along its highways.” The Florida Native Plant Society dates the bloom to mid-fall.

• Blazing stars, goldenrods and sunflowers

  September–October peak; seaside goldenrod into November · Scrub, sandhills, flatwoods, roadsides, the edge of the salt marsh

  Chapman’s blazing star, purple spikes in the scrub and on the dunes, blooms summer to fall “with the peak being in September-October.” Seaside goldenrod flowers along the coast from summer into fall, one of the plants the migrating monarchs work at St. Marks. Swamp sunflower, the narrow-leaved one, “blooms in fall” in flatwoods, marsh edges and wet roadside ditches, often by the acre.

• Berries and mast

  Now · Flatwoods, hammocks, yards

  American beautyberry hangs clusters of magenta fruit along its stems for catbirds, mockingbirds and robins. Saw palmetto is in fruit; the Florida Native Plant Society counts more than 100 bird species, 27 mammals, 25 amphibians and 61 reptiles that use it, and its berries are important bear food. Acorns are dropping in the scrub oaks and live oaks, and the scrub-jays, bears and deer are all working the same crop.

• Fall color: not yet

  Late fall in North Florida, later down the peninsula · Rivers and swamps for bald cypress; wet woods for red maple

  The two trees the Florida Native Plant Society lists as “noted for fall color” are bald cypress and red maple, and neither is in a hurry. Cypress turns rust and drops its needles late in the fall, usually after Halloween in the north and later down the peninsula, and the red maple’s color comes with the cool weather. October brings only the first thinning of the swamp canopy.

What can families do outside in Florida this month?

Safety notes for October in Florida