What to look for in nature in Tennessee this October

When do the leaves change in Tennessee?

Where can you hear elk bugle in Tennessee?

• Hatfield Knob, North Cumberland WMA

  Dawn and dusk; peaks late Sept – early Oct and again mid-Oct · Sundquist Unit, Campbell County (Central time)

  Sit on the tower at first light and let the sound find you before the animals do; a bugle starts low, climbs to a whistle and ends in grunts. The state’s elk hunts run in the area from September 26 to October 16 (nineteen permits in all), so wear bright orange on the walk in and keep to the tower and the road.

• Cataloochee and Oconaluftee

  Rut into late October; early morning and late evening · North Carolina side of the Smokies (Eastern time)

  The park says “from early September to late-October, elk gather in mixed herds for their mating season,” and dominant bulls hold harems of up to 20 cows. The fields at Cataloochee and Oconaluftee are closed to all visitors during the rut, and approaching within 50 yards (150 feet) is illegal. Rangers suggest early morning or late evening, and ask you to stay beside your vehicle when elk are near the road. About 270 elk live in western North Carolina, descended from 52 animals released in 2001 and 2002.

When do sandhill cranes arrive at the Hiwassee Refuge?

What other birds arrive, leave or pass through in October?

• Hawks over Walden’s Ridge

  September and early October best; more mid-Oct and into Nov · Soddy Mountain hawk watch, Highway 111 above Soddy-Daisy

  The only Tennessee lookout ever counted through full spring and fall seasons sits on a 75-foot bluff on the eastern face of Walden’s Ridge above Highway 111, reached by driving about 20 miles up Highway 27 from Chattanooga. Its five commonest fall birds are broad-winged hawk, turkey vulture, red-tailed hawk, sharp-shinned hawk and black vulture, and the counters say “Fall (Sept and early Oct) is best.” Later in the month, expect fewer broad-wings and more sharp-shins, red-tails and vultures, best on a northwest wind behind a front.

• Monarchs

  Peak passage about Sept 20 – Oct 6; stragglers to mid-October · Statewide; goldenrod fields, ridgelines, roost trees at dusk

  Monarch Watch’s latitude windows put the peak from September 24 to October 6 along 35° N, the line through Memphis and Chattanooga, and from September 19 to October 1 at 37° N, just over the Kentucky border; Nashville and Knoxville sit in between. After the first week of October the main flight is south of the state, though single butterflies drift through on warm afternoons. Report roosts and sightings to Journey North, or tag a few with a Monarch Watch kit.

• Hummingbirds and the feeder

  Most gone by early October · Yards and gardens

  TWRA calls the ruby-throat a summer inhabitant “from mid-April to early October,” after which it flies nonstop across the Gulf, nearly 500 miles in 18 to 20 hours. Keep the feeder clean and up for a few weeks after your last bird; a western stray may find it. Write down the date of your last ruby-throat; it is a small piece of real data.

• Ducks and eagles on the big waters

  Eagles from late October; ducks building through November · Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee NWR, Cross Creeks NWR, the Hatchie

  Northern bald eagles “migrate to Tennessee for the winter, arriving in late October,” with peak numbers from late January to mid-February at Reelfoot, Dale Hollow, Kentucky, Chickamauga, Watts Bar and Pickwick lakes; Reelfoot Lake State Park counts more than 200 wintering there. The ducks trickle in behind them, building through November toward a midwinter peak. Cross Creeks and parts of Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge close as waterfowl sanctuary from November 15 to March 15, so October is the month to walk them; Hatchie NWR, bottomland hardwood along 23 miles of the Hatchie River in Haywood County, is the quiet alternative.

When is the first freeze in Tennessee?

How fast are Tennessee’s days getting shorter?

Is October dry in Tennessee, and what will El Niño bring?

What can you see in Tennessee’s night sky in October?

• The Moon hides Jupiter

  Before dawn, Tuesday, October 6 · Low in the east; you need a flat horizon

  The thin waning crescent rises with Jupiter beside it and then covers it. Jupiter disappears behind the bright edge at about 3:16 a.m. CDT in Memphis, Jackson and Nashville (4:16 a.m. EDT in Chattanooga, 4:17 in Knoxville) with the moon only 5 to 10 degrees up, and reappears from the dark edge at about 4:15 a.m. CDT in Memphis and Jackson and 4:17 in Nashville (5:17 a.m. EDT in Chattanooga, 5:18 in Knoxville), by then 17 to 23 degrees high. Both the disappearance and the reappearance happen in a dark sky across the state. Binoculars show it well.

• Saturn all night

  At opposition Oct 4; near the Moon Oct 23–24 · Rising in the east at sunset

  On October 4 Saturn reaches opposition, its nearest and brightest of 2026. It comes up in the east around sunset, stays up until dawn, and outshines every star in its faint corner of sky near the Pisces–Cetus border.

• Draconid meteors

  Evening of Thursday, October 8 · Look north after dark

  Expect only five to ten slow meteors an hour at best. Unlike most showers it is an early-evening event, and the new moon two days later means a dark sky, so children can watch before bedtime.

• Orionid meteors

  Pre-dawn, October 21 and 22 · Anywhere dark; face southeast

  The shower runs October 2 through November 7 and peaks broadly on the 21st and 22nd, usually at 10 to 20 meteors an hour under dark skies. In Nashville the waxing gibbous moon sets at about 2:08 a.m. CDT on the 21st and 3:10 a.m. on the 22nd, leaving a dark window until twilight at about 6:35 a.m.; in Knoxville it sets at 2:56 and 3:58 a.m. EDT with twilight about 7:22 a.m. By the 23rd the moon is up past 4 a.m. and the window shrinks.

• The Hunter’s Moon

  Sunday, October 25, rising about half an hour before sunset · Everywhere; find a low eastern horizon

  The full moon after the Harvest Moon. It rises at about 5:27 p.m. CDT in Nashville, half an hour before sunset, and at 6:15 p.m. EDT in Knoxville, and comes up again a little later on the 26th. It is not a supermoon by the strict perigee definition.

• Venus drops out; Jupiter and Mars rule the dawn

  Venus only in the first days; Jupiter and Mars before dawn all month · West at dusk; east at dawn

  Catch Venus in the first few evenings of the month, very low in the west after sunset; it sinks into the glare and crosses between the sun and Earth on October 23. The morning sky belongs to Jupiter, high in the east before sunrise, with Mars above it; on the morning of the 11th Mars passes the Beehive cluster, a pretty sight in binoculars.

• Star programs in the state parks

  October 10 and 16 · Harrison Bay and Montgomery Bell

  Both fall in dark-moon windows: Harrison Bay State Park near Chattanooga leads a “Signs in the Stars” night hike on Saturday, October 10, 10 to 11 p.m. EDT, the night of the new moon, and Montgomery Bell State Park west of Nashville holds a star viewing on Friday, October 16, 7 to 10 p.m. CDT. Check the park calendar for registration.

What is blooming, ripening and dropping?

• Goldenrod and the asters

  Through October; asters to the first hard frost · Roadsides, old fields, cedar glades, creek banks

  UT Gardens puts it simply: goldenrod “blooms between late summer and fall providing a much-needed source of late season nectar,” and it does not cause hay fever; its pollen “is too heavy to be carried in the wind,” and the culprit is ragweed, blooming at the same time. Its fall companions are the field list too: aromatic aster, New England aster, ironweed, Joe-Pye weed and beautyberry. The pollinator-watch plate is for a goldenrod head on a warm afternoon; count what lands in ten minutes.

• Witch hazel

  October to December · Moist woods and streambanks; UT Gardens at Knoxville, Crossville and Jackson

  The last native shrub to flower. American witch hazel opens its ragged yellow, fragrant blooms “October to December,” often on the same branch as its golden fall leaves.

• Persimmons and pawpaws

  Persimmons ripen September to November; pawpaws mostly done by mid-October · Field edges, fencerows, old homesites; pawpaws in rich bottomland shade

  The USDA plant guide says the common persimmon “fruits in September–November,” with “highly astringent pulp before ripening, turning yellowish-orange to reddish-orange and sweet in the fall.” A ripe one is soft, frost or no frost, and the fruit can hang on the bare tree “unaffected by freezing temperatures.” Look for deer, fox and raccoon tracks beneath a loaded tree. Pawpaws ripen “in late summer to early fall” and drop when soft; check under them early in the month, before the raccoons do.

• Acorns and hickory nuts

  White oak acorns September to November; shagbark hickory in October · Every oak-hickory ridge in the state

  This is the crop the whole forest waits for. White oak acorns “appear from September–November” and feed woodpeckers, blue jays, turkeys, deer, squirrels and bears; shagbark hickory nuts split their husks and drop in October for squirrels, chipmunks and bears. A heavy year keeps the bears on the ridges and the deer in the woods; a poor one sends both into yards and onto roads. Count the acorns in one square yard under one tree, write it in the seeds-pods-and-cones plate, and do it again next year.

What are the salamanders, bears, deer and snakes doing?

• Marbled salamanders nesting in dry pond beds

  October into November; eggs hatch when winter rains flood the nest · Dried beds of woodland pools, statewide except the far northeast

  Tennessee’s strangest October event happens under leaves in a pond that is not there. The marbled salamander “is the only member of its family in Tennessee to mate and lay eggs upon land”: in fall, TWRA explains, “females construct nests just below the leaf litter of dried beds of temporary or drying ponds,” then “will often stay to protect the eggs from small predators and fungus,” and the eggs “hatch when the nest is flooded during winter or early spring rains.” It is a stout, four-inch animal, black with white bands in males and gray in females, “found everywhere in the state except the northeastern corner.” If you look, lift one leaf at a time at the edge of a dry basin and put everything back.

• Bears eating for winter

  All month; denning begins late October · The Smokies, the Cherokee National Forest, the northern Cumberlands

  The park says “nuts and acorns are especially important during the fall,” that bears “can nearly double their weight” for winter, and that “between late October and mid-December, black bears begin settling into their winter den sites.” BearWise notes bears may forage up to 20 hours a day now, and that October “is one of the top months for vehicle collisions with animals, including bears.” Roughly 1,900 bears live in the Smokies, about two per square mile.

• Deer: rubs and scrapes

  October; the breeding peak comes later in the fall · Statewide; field edges and creek bottoms

  Bucks are rubbing the bark off saplings and pawing scrapes under low branches this month; dawn and dusk on a field edge will show you why. The dusk-and-dawn watch plate is for this, and so is slowing down on rural roads after sunset.

• Copperheads and timber rattlesnakes, still out

  Warm afternoons all month · Rocky, wooded hillsides; bluffs and ledges; leaf litter

  Both occur “across the entire state,” and both court and mate in fall, so October is not the month to stop watching your feet. The copperhead “prefers forested habitat” and rocky hillsides with logs and leaf litter, but also suburbs and stream edges. The timber rattlesnake, “the largest and most dangerous of the 4 venomous snakes in Tennessee,” likes “rocky, south-facing hillsides; often associated with bluffs or ledges,” which are exactly the overlooks people hike to for the color. TWRA’s rule: “Always check before putting your hands in cracks and crevices.”

What are good October outings for Tennessee families?

Safety notes for October in Tennessee