What to look for in nature in Pennsylvania this November

Where can you see golden eagles and big hawks in Pennsylvania in November?

• Allegheny Front Hawk Watch: the golden eagle post

  Count runs August 15 to December 31; golden eagles strongest late October through November · Near Central City on the Somerset–Bedford county line, about 2,690 feet up

  The Allegheny Plateau Audubon Society keeps this count on the edge of the plateau, where the eagles often pass at eye level. It averages 226 golden eagles a season, and its best season so far was 450 in 2022. Most hawk watches want a northwest wind, but this one does best on an east wind, which pushes the eagles against the escarpment; west winds are the usual ones here, so an east-wind day in November is worth a drive. The site is often fogged in, so check before you drive.

• Hawk Mountain: red-tails, goshawks and the eagles

  Red-tail peak usually the first week of November; count ends December 15 · Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Kittatinny Ridge near Kempton

  Red-tailed hawks are the Sanctuary’s third most numerous migrant, averaging nearly 3,000 a season, and their flight generally crests in the first week of November, with about 90 percent passing between October 9 and December 1. The sanctuary’s species accounts put the bulk of its golden eagle flight in November, and early November is the best chance of a golden and a bald eagle on the same day. The American goshawk, the big gray forest hawk, peaks here in November too, though it averages only about 58 a season; a rough-legged hawk from the Arctic is a rare November or December bonus. The rule that matters most is unchanged: come on the northwest winds in the few days after a cold front passes.

• Bald eagles on open water

  Through the month, wherever water stays open · Upper Delaware River, Middle Creek, the lower Susquehanna, Raystown Lake, Pymatuning, Glendale Lake at Prince Gallitzin

  The Game Commission’s eagle-watching guide names the upper Delaware as the biggest winter gathering in the state, 150 to 200 birds, and lists open lakes and rivers in every region. Scan the tallest dead trees along a shoreline, and keep your distance: an eagle flushed in the cold burns energy it cannot easily replace.

When do tundra swans and diving ducks arrive in Pennsylvania?

• Tundra swans on the lower Susquehanna

  Arriving mid-November to mid-December · Lower Susquehanna River; Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in northern Lancaster County

  According to the Game Commission, tundra swans reach their wintering grounds between mid-November and mid-December, and most of Pennsylvania’s winter in the lower Susquehanna valley and at Middle Creek; as much as a quarter of the eastern population stops in the Susquehanna valley. Listen before you look: a flock high overhead gives a soft, musical whooping that carries a long way. Middle Creek’s big numbers of swans, and its famous snow goose crowds, build later in winter, peaking in February and March, so November is the quiet first act. The Wildlife Drive closed on September 30, and the visitor center closes from Thanksgiving until the Tuesday after Martin Luther King Day.

• Diving ducks, loons and grebes at Presque Isle

  Late November through December · Presque Isle Bay and the lake side of the peninsula at Erie

  The Tom Ridge Environmental Center gives late November through December as Presque Isle’s fall waterfowl season. Audubon’s guide to the park points out that birds flying south across the lake treat the peninsula as their first landfall, and in winter it holds “all manner of waterfowl, loons, grebes, and gulls”; the Game Commission singles out lesser scaup on Presque Isle Bay. Bring a scope and pick a calm morning; whitecaps hide everything on the lake.

• Reservoirs inland

  Through November · Pymatuning, Lake Wilhelm and Shenango in the northwest; Raystown; Lake Ontelaunee and Nockamixon in the southeast

  Deep reservoirs collect ring-necked ducks, mergansers, ruddy ducks and the odd long-tailed duck or scoter forced down by weather. The gray, drizzly morning after a storm front, when flocks have been grounded overnight, is often the best of the month.

When is the deer rut in Pennsylvania, and when do bears go to den?

• Whitetails at the peak of the rut

  Breeding peaks in mid-November · Statewide, including suburbs and farm country

  The Game Commission says the breeding season can run from September into late January but that activity “reaches its peak in mid-November,” and most adult does have been bred by the end of December. For two or three weeks the bucks lose their caution: they trail does across open fields at midday, grunt, spar and run roads. Look for fresh scrapes, bare patches pawed under a low branch, and saplings rubbed raw at knee height. The same restlessness puts deer in front of cars. State Farm, which counts insurance claims, rates Pennsylvania drivers’ odds of hitting a large animal at 1 in 64, among the highest in the country, and says November is the worst month nationally, followed by October and December. Its advice is to be most careful between dusk and dawn, and from November 1 dusk falls squarely in the evening commute.

• Black bears going to den

  Pregnant females mid- to late November; males several weeks later · Statewide, densest in the northern tier, the Poconos and the central ridges

  Pennsylvania has about 19,000 black bears. The Game Commission says the first bears into dens are pregnant females, typically in mid- to late November; males hold out several weeks longer. A den can be a hollow tree, a dug-out hole like an oversized groundhog burrow, a rock crevice or a nest under the roots of a fallen tree. Bear hibernation is shallow: a denned bear is alert and can wake and leave if disturbed, so give any brush pile or rock ledge with a bear in it a wide berth. Cubs are born in the den in early January.

Will winter finches and evening grosbeaks come to Pennsylvania this year?

• Evening grosbeaks

  Any time from November; small flocks if they come · Northern tier feeders first; Poconos, Allegheny National Forest, central ridges

  The forecast says “a small movement is quite possible” south of the boreal forest to southern New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, helped by years of spruce budworm outbreaks that have raised grosbeak numbers. A male is unmistakable: yellow body, black and white wings, a heavy pale bill and a yellow eyebrow. They are loud and gregarious and empty a platform feeder of sunflower seed in a morning. Any sighting is worth reporting to eBird.

• Purple finches and red crossbills

  November onward · Purple finches at feeders and in hedgerows; crossbills in white pine and spruce stands

  Purple finches should come south and east again this winter; the female, brown-streaked with a bold white eyebrow, is the one most people miss. Red crossbills are the forecast’s big story: western pine crops failed, and Type 2 birds moved east across the continent, so with a heavy white pine crop in the East, crossbills could turn up in Pennsylvania’s pine plantations and old white pine stands. Listen for a hard “kip kip” from the treetops and watch for cone scales drifting down.

• What not to expect

  This winter · Statewide

  The forecast does not expect a big redpoll flight, and it sees little movement of pine grosbeaks or Bohemian waxwings and a weaker southward push of red-breasted nuthatches than last year. Blue jays were moving in above-average numbers along the north shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, so feeders may see plenty of jays.

Which trees still have leaves or color in Pennsylvania in November?

• Tamaracks in the bogs

  Gold in late October and early November; bare by late November · Tannersville Cranberry Bog in Monroe County; Tamarack Run Natural Area in Loyalsock State Forest; scattered northern-tier wetlands

  Few people expect a conifer to go bare, but the tamarack (American larch) turns its needles a clear gold and then sheds them. In Pennsylvania it is a boreal relict at the southern edge of its range. The Nature Conservancy calls its Tannersville Cranberry Bog preserve the southernmost low-elevation boreal bog along the eastern seaboard, and American larch grows there; the boardwalk into the bog is open only on guided walks run by the Monroe County Conservation District’s Kettle Creek Environmental Education Center (registration at 570-629-3061), which the Conservancy lists on Wednesdays through November. Tamarack Run Natural Area near Forksville, in Loyalsock State Forest, protects another stand, though it is boggy and hard going on foot. Elsewhere, look for planted larches in parks and old estates; in early November they glow against the gray hillsides.

• Oaks and beeches that hold their leaves

  Through the winter, until spring growth pushes them off · Young beech in the understory; oaks on dry ridges statewide

  Botanists call it marcescence. Northern Woodlands magazine describes it as mostly a juvenile trait, common on young trees and low branches: the leaves die on schedule, but these trees put off the shedding process that would drop them. The papery tan beech leaves and the russet oak leaves rattle all winter. Several explanations have been offered: dead leaves may hide buds from browsing deer, catch snow like a fence, or drop in spring as fresh mulch when it is most useful. Nobody is sure; note which of your trees hold their leaves and which drop them.

Has your part of Pennsylvania had its first freeze yet?

How much daylight does Pennsylvania lose in November?

How cold and snowy is November in Pennsylvania, and what might El Niño bring this winter?

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

• The Beaver Moon, a supermoon

  Full at 9:53 a.m. Tuesday, November 24; looks full the evenings of Monday the 23rd and Tuesday the 24th · Rising in the east-northeast around sunset

  Almanacs call November’s full moon the Beaver Moon. It comes about 30 hours before lunar perigee, close enough for EarthSky and others to count it a supermoon, though only slightly enlarged; December’s will be the closest of the year. Overnight from Monday to Tuesday it slides across or beside the Pleiades, though moonlight drowns the cluster, so try binoculars.

• The Leonids

  Peak around November 17; best before dawn on Wednesday, November 18 · Face east or overhead after midnight; the radiant in Leo climbs through the night

  The International Meteor Organization expects an ordinary year with no outburst, perhaps 15 an hour in ideal darkness. Moonset comes near midnight; Leo, where the meteors seem to start, rides highest in the last hour before twilight, so set an alarm for 4 or 5 a.m. on the 18th; the 17th and the 19th are close behind. Leonids are fast and often leave glowing trails.

• Taurid fireballs and the dark new moon

  Southern Taurids peak about November 5, Northern Taurids about November 12; new moon 2:02 a.m. Monday, November 9 · Taurus, high in the east by mid-evening

  Both Taurid streams come from the dust of Comet Encke and offer few meteors, five or ten in a good hour, but those few crawl across the sky and Taurid fireballs are a November tradition. With the new moon between their peaks, the second week of November has moonless evenings, the best time this month for the Milky Way and faint stars.

• A crowded morning sky

  Before dawn all month; Mars and Jupiter closest November 15–16 · East and south before sunrise

  Venus has become the morning star, gaining height daily and peaking in brilliance around Thanksgiving week. Jupiter and Mars are both in Leo near Regulus; at dawn on November 15 and again on the 16th they stand only about a degree apart, Jupiter far the brighter. Mercury joins them low in the east-southeast before sunrise for roughly a week from November 18. After dark, Saturn is the lone planet, in the southern sky. With binoculars, look for Uranus near the Pleiades; it is at opposition on November 25.

What can families do outdoors in Pennsylvania in November?

Safety notes for November in Pennsylvania