What to look for in nature in New Hampshire this April

Which birds return to New Hampshire in April?

• Tree swallows and hermit thrushes lead the way

  Early April, sometimes late March · Ponds, marshes, fields with nest boxes; woodland edges for thrushes

  NH Audubon calls tree swallows the first swallows back, followed by northern rough-winged swallows. Hermit thrushes also appear in early April, and they are the one thrush likely to be here this early: the other thrushes usually wait until May.

• Chipping sparrows, kinglets and the first warblers

  Mid-April · Lawns, brushy edges, evergreens and streamsides

  NH Audubon calls the chipping sparrow the tree sparrow look-alike, and it comes back around mid-April. Ruby-crowned kinglets arrive in the second week, and NH Audubon warns that their song can be mistaken for a common yellowthroat or even a Carolina wren. Pine, palm and yellow-rumped warblers are the earliest warblers, with the Louisiana waterthrush joining them along fast, rocky streams. The first Black-and-white, northern parula and black-throated green warblers of the May wave often appear in the last days of the month.

• Broad-winged hawks on a warm south wind

  Third week of April · Overhead, anywhere with a wide view of the sky

  Watch for broad-winged hawks in the third week of April, NH Audubon advises, especially when a warm south wind blows. Note the date for the birds-I-have-seen plate of the Naturalist’s Field Journal.

• Weather can drop grebes and sea ducks onto big lakes

  Cold or rainy days · Lake Winnipesaukee, Newfound Lake, Spofford Lake and other large lakes

  Cold or rainy weather can bring horned and red-necked grebes, along with sea ducks such as red-breasted mergansers and long-tailed ducks, down onto large lakes, NH Audubon says. A raw, drizzly April afternoon with a spotting scope on a lake shore can be better than a sunny one. The last days of the month bring northern house wrens, which NH Audubon says begin to trickle in.

Which animals return to New Hampshire’s beaches, lakes and rivers in April?

• Piping plovers on Hampton and Seabrook beaches

  April, when the birds return · Hampton Beach and Seabrook Beach

  Piping plovers are state-endangered and federally threatened. NH Fish and Game staff rope off nesting areas on the dunes at Hampton and Seabrook with yellow rope and signs soon after the birds return. The department’s 2023 report counted at least 15 nesting pairs on the two beaches, a record, up from 14 the year before, and 28 chicks fledged the year earlier. It lists what beachgoers can do: stay outside the rope, keep dogs leashed, fill holes that trap sand-colored chicks the size of cotton balls, and volunteer. Chicks that survive migration to Florida and the Gulf Coast may come back to the beach where they hatched.

• Loons return as the lakes open

  As ice leaves each lake · Lakes statewide, from the Seacoast to the Great North Woods

  Loons come back when a lake has enough open water, which is why the same date varies from one lake to the next. The Loon Preservation Committee in Moultonborough has kept records on nearly every territorial pair since the late 1970s and follows more than 350 lakes a year. Its volunteers and staff float nest rafts only where natural nests have failed for three or more years running; rafts have produced about a quarter of New Hampshire’s loon chicks over the past two decades. The committee notes its annual Loon Census was Saturday, July 18, 2026 from 8 to 9 a.m.; no 2027 date is posted yet. Until then, give loons a wide berth on the water and keep wakes small near any shoreline where one is sitting.

• River herring at the coastal fishways

  Fishways open at the start of April; counts run May to mid-June · Exeter, Lamprey, Cocheco, Oyster and Winnicut rivers

  NH Fish and Game opens seven fishways on six coastal river systems at the beginning of April each year to monitor the spawning runs of river herring (alewives and blueback herring) and American shad. The runs are usually bigger in May. Since the Great Dam came out at Exeter, herring can reach more than seven miles of spawning habitat on the river, according to the department, and volunteers in May and June make 10-minute counts. Contact details for the volunteer program are on the department’s page; the 2027 sign-up is not posted.

• Ospreys return to their nests

  April · Utility poles, platforms and cell towers near rivers, lakes and the coast

  NH Audubon says ospreys begin to arrive in April. Once rare, they now nest in every major watershed: the Forest Society puts the number at about 150 pairs, after the state’s count of three active nests in 1980. Nearly half of the 21 nests monitored in the Lakes Region are on cell towers.

What are frogs and salamanders doing in New Hampshire in April?

• Wood frogs quack, then spawn

  Early spring, as vernal pools thaw; April in the north · Vernal pools

  NH Audubon says the males arrive first and gather in groups called leks, calling to attract females. A pool can sound like a flock of ducks. This frog survives winter frozen solid, with its heartbeat stopped, and thaws from the inside out when the weather warms. After the chorus, look for the eggs in the pool itself.

• A peeper chorus that moves north

  When nights hold in the 40s · Wet woods and pond edges

  The Forest Society explains that spring peepers spend the winter beneath leaf litter and wake once nights are regularly in the forties. Southern towns report them before northern ones. Males sit in cracks, tall vegetation or beside open water, which amplifies the call and makes a single frog hard to find. A group heard from a distance measures around 65 decibels, the Society says, about the level of a conversation in a bar. The season at one pool lasts only a few weeks, and afterward the frogs go back to the woods.

• Vernal pools worth knowing

  Late April, when the pools are full · Monadnock Region and statewide

  The Harris Center for Conservation Education documents vernal pools in the Monadnock Region, and its 2023 field report brought the total to 358 pools in 17 towns, with an online map for the public. Fish and Game adds that 85 percent of the amphibians that use these pools return each year to breed in the one where they were born, even when a road lies in the way. That is why a single pool on private land deserves care. Look from the edge, and do not wade or move egg masses. Send sightings, or reports of heavy road deaths, to RAARP@wildlife.nh.gov. State-listed rare species include the marbled salamander, Fowler’s toad and northern leopard frog, which Fish and Game asks people to report.

What are bald eagles and wild turkeys doing in April?

• Eagle pairs with eggs and small chicks

  Eggs and small chicks · Rivers, lakes and the Great Bay estuary

  Many eagle pairs are well into the nesting cycle by April, tending eggs or small chicks. The 2024 season shows how weather affects a nest: two snowstorms, on March 23 and April 5, struck while pairs were incubating or tending small chicks, and snow deeper than 18 inches can pack around eggs and chill or kill embryos. That year had a record 115 territorial pairs and 80 incubating pairs, but fledglings fell to 81 from the previous record of 93. Watch only from a distance with binoculars; NH Audubon asks people to report nest-building or pairs to its raptor biologist.

• Wild turkeys gobble at dawn

  Mid-March to May, peaking in April · Forest edges and fields, statewide

  Gobbling is long-range advertising and strutting is the short-range display, a Fish and Game biologist told Northern Woodlands. Males call at dawn from the roost and then strut for hens. Hens lay about one egg a day for two weeks in a leaf-lined hollow, and incubate only once a year, though a hen whose nest fails may try again. Turkeys vanished from the state for more than a century and were brought back in 1975. Fish and Game reported a 2025 harvest of 4,846 turkeys, a modest increase, and said nesting success was normal in 2024 and 2025.

When do New Hampshire’s spring wildflowers bloom?

• Trout lily

  Late April, in the south and low ground first · Rich hardwood slopes and floodplains

  Trout lily is the emblem of northern New England spring: yellow, nodding flowers over leaves splotched like the sides of a brook trout. Northern Woodlands notes it spreads more by expanding underground than by seed, so a patch you see this year is likely one that has been there for years.

• Bloodroot and red trillium

  Late April to May · Rich woods and stream banks

  Bloodroot opens wide for a day in good sun before its petals fall, and is named for its bright orange-red sap. It is listed by the state as a watch species, so look rather than pick. Red trillium carries a faint smell of rotting meat that draws its pollinating insects. Dutchman’s breeches and spring beauty belong to the same group.

What is April like on Mount Washington?

• Spring skiing and its hazards

  April into early summer, snow permitting · Tuckerman Ravine

  The Mount Washington Avalanche Center names five spring hazards that have contributed to hundreds of accidents: falling ice and rock (ice can exceed 60 mph, and Lunch Rocks is singled out), glide cracks and snow holes deep enough to swallow a person, hard refrozen surfaces that call for crampons and an ice axe, snow hollowed out from below by meltwater, and wet slides. Read the center’s page before climbing into the ravine, and do not rely on the pack of other skiers.

How much daylight does New Hampshire gain in April?

What is April weather in New Hampshire, and what are the hazards?

• Wildfire danger before green-up

  April, before leaves open · Statewide, especially in dry spells

  The Forest Protection Bureau’s chief told NHPR in April 2026 that drought makes fires burn deep and slow to put out. January to March 2026 was the sixth driest start in records back to 1895, and in 2025 the state saw 27 percent more wildfires and 16 percent more acres burned than the year before. The state set Wildfire Awareness Week for April 19 to 25 in 2026; the 2027 week is not posted. Get a burn permit before any outdoor fire when snow is not covering the ground, clear leaves and needles from roofs and gutters, and be careful with equipment and target shooting.

• Late snow and cold snaps

  Any week in April · North and the mountains most, but snow can reach the south

  The 2024 eagle season, with snowstorms on March 23 and April 5, shows that a late storm can reach nests in the south. Sap that ran in March is finished, and fruit trees that bloom early can lose flowers to a freeze, since the median last freeze in the table below falls from late April in the south to late May in the north.

• Lake ice-out as a calendar

  Varies by lake · Lakes statewide

  The state Department of Environmental Services keeps decades of ice-out records, and a staff member told NHPR that lakes are thawing earlier than historical averages, which exposes them to pollutants for longer. Lake Winnipesaukee’s declaration is covered on our March page.

When is the last spring freeze in New Hampshire?

What can you see in the New Hampshire night sky in April 2027?

• The Pink Moon

  Full at 6:27 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, April 20 · Rising in the east around sunset

  The April full moon, the Pink Moon, becomes full in the late afternoon, so it climbs above the eastern horizon near sunset on both the 20th and the 21st. By our own calculation, none of the full moons from March through September 2027 is a supermoon.

• The Lyrids, in a poor year

  Peak about 9:41 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 22 · Look northeast and overhead before moonrise

  Lyrid meteors streak from Lyra for roughly two weeks, mid to late April. In 2027 the bright, nearly full moon rises around 10 p.m. in Boston that night, leaving only the early evening dark, and the International Meteor Organization expects poor conditions. Count on a few meteors per hour at best. Rare, brief outbursts can happen but nobody can predict them.

• Jupiter, Mars and the moon

  Moon beside Jupiter the evenings of April 14 and 15 · High in the south after dark, in Leo and Cancer

  Jupiter, the brightest point in the evening sky, stays up well past midnight in early April. By our calculation, the gibbous moon (68 percent lit) passes within about one degree of it as night falls on the 14th and 15th, with Mars a few degrees from the moon on the 15th. Both planets dim slowly through the spring.

• Venus before sunrise, and Saturn out of sight

  Moon near Venus the mornings of April 3 and 4 · Low in the east before dawn

  By our calculation, on those mornings a slim waning crescent, about 9 percent lit, hangs within three degrees of brilliant Venus, which rises about 75 minutes before the sun at the start of the month. Saturn sits directly behind the sun on April 7, so it is hidden in the glare for a few weeks.

What can New Hampshire families do outdoors in April 2027?

Safety notes for April in New Hampshire