What to look for in nature in Texas this October

When do monarchs migrate through Texas?

When do hummingbirds leave Texas?

What other birds arrive or pass through in October?

• Broad-winged hawks and the Corpus Christi HawkWatch

  Count runs to Nov 15 · Hazel Bazemore County Park, Coastal Bend

  The last three weeks of September are the broad-wing peak, and seasons there run from 445,000 to more than a million raptors. By October the big kettles are mostly past, but the count continues daily through November 15 and the first days of October can still be large.

• Whooping cranes

  Late October · Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Gulf Coast

  The refuge’s most famous migrants typically arrive in late October and stay until mid-April. The wild flock winters nowhere else.

• Sandhill cranes

  Arriving from October; peak Dec – Feb · Panhandle playas and the coast

  Sandhills start south from Canada and the northern states in October. Roughly 700,000 winter in Texas, split between the coast and the Panhandle, where Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge can hold more than 100,000 in midwinter. Listen for the rolling call overhead before you see them.

• Geese behind the fronts

  With the first strong cold front · Statewide, most on the coast and Panhandle

  TPWD’s migration guide puts it plainly: the first cold front of the fall usually brings flocks of migrating geese with it. The morning after a norther is the morning to look up.

• Winter residents settling in

  Mid-September to November · Statewide

  Ruby-crowned kinglets have been arriving since mid-September. Yellow-rumped warblers become abundant on the upper coast from mid-October. Juncos, kestrels and the winter sparrows arrive on the October fronts and are common by November; those last dates are general, not Texas-specific.

• Teal and the first ducks

  September into November · Coast and Panhandle wetlands

  Blue-winged teal lead the way, and a large share of the population winters no farther south than the Texas coast. Each cold front pushes more waterfowl into the state.

When does the first cold front and the first freeze come?

How much daylight does Texas lose in October?

Is October a wet month in Texas, and what about El Niño?

What is in the sky over Texas this October?

• The Hunter’s Moon

  Sunday, October 25, rising at sunset · Everywhere; find a low eastern horizon

  The full moon after the Harvest Moon. Watch it rise in the east around sunset on October 25 and again, a little later, on the 26th. Some almanacs call it a supermoon; by the strict perigee definition it is not, so we do not.

• Orionid meteors

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

  Active from October 2 to November 7 with a broad peak around October 21–22 and typical rates of 10–20 an hour. The waxing gibbous moon sets at about 2:54 a.m. on the 21st and 3:54 a.m. on the 22nd in Dallas, which leaves a dark window from roughly 4:00 to 6:30 a.m. By the 23rd the moon does not set until about 4:55 a.m., so the window shrinks.

• Draconid meteors

  Evening of Thursday, October 8 · Look north after dark

  A slow, sparse shower, five to ten an hour at best, but it favors the evening rather than the small hours, and there is no moon to spoil it. Good for children.

• Saturn all night

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

  Saturn is at its closest and brightest for the year on October 4, rising as the sun sets and visible all night as the brightest “star” in a dim patch of sky between Pisces and Cetus. The bright moon sits beside it on the nights of October 23 and 24.

• Venus leaves, Jupiter and Mars take the morning

  Venus gone after the first week; Jupiter and Mars before dawn · West at dusk; east at dawn

  Venus is low in the western twilight and, from Texas latitudes, visible only into the first week of October before passing between Earth and the sun on the 23rd. Jupiter shines high in the east at dawn with Mars above it and the star Regulus below; Mars slips past the Beehive star cluster on the morning of October 11.

• The moon hides Jupiter

  About 4:06–4:12 a.m. CDT, Tuesday, October 6 · Very low in the east; needs a flat horizon

  The thin waning crescent rises with Jupiter already behind it, and Jupiter reappears from the dark edge at about 4:06 a.m. in Brownsville, 4:09 in San Antonio, 4:10 in Austin and Houston, 4:11 in Dallas and 4:12 in Amarillo (3:10 a.m. Mountain time in El Paso), with the moon only seven to eleven degrees up. Binoculars help. It is a rare thing to see and worth the alarm clock if you have an open eastern view.

• Star parties

  October 3 and 10 · State parks and Big Bend

  Both dates fall in dark-moon windows. Enchanted Rock hosts the Central Texas Astronomers on Saturday, October 3, 7:25–9:10 p.m.; Copper Breaks holds a StarWalk on Saturday, October 10, at 7:30 p.m.; Big Bend Ranch has a Star Party in the Borderlands on October 10 (reservations required; confirm the start time with the park) and a night hike on October 30. Big Bend National Park runs free ranger night-sky programs on a weekly schedule.

What is blooming, turning and dropping?

• Fall wildflowers

  Through October, some to November · Roadsides, prairies, creek banks

  Tall goldenrod, Maximilian sunflower and dotted gayfeather bloom August through October or November; small palafox on limestone and sand; cowpen daisy on disturbed ground in the drier parts of the state; blue mistflower and Gregg’s mistflower, the butterfly magnets, into November. Snow-on-the-prairie can whiten whole fields, but its milky sap irritates skin and eyes, so look and do not pick. Frostweed is blooming now; its famous ice ribbons come with the first hard freeze, which for most of Texas means November or later.

• Fall color

  Starts late October; peaks in November · Lost Maples, East Texas, Hill Country rivers

  Texas has one of the latest peaks in the country, and the Texas A&M Forest Service is blunt that trees are “entirely weather dependent.” Lost Maples State Natural Area starts its weekly foliage report in mid-October and fills to capacity daily in October and November, so reserve a pass before you go, and keep off the maples’ shallow roots. In the Piney Woods, sweetgum, red oak, sassafras, sumac and bigtooth maple color against the pines; along the Guadalupe and Comal, bald cypress turns rust. The Field almanac reads satellite tree timing for your pin.

• Pecans and acorns

  October into December · Bottomlands, yards, parks

  Most Texas pecan varieties are harvested in October. Live oak acorns ripen brown and drop from October into December, and they feed squirrels, jays, deer and raccoons, whose diet is more than half acorns and fruit. Count the acorns under one tree and write it down; mast years are worth knowing.

• Pollen and mushrooms

  Ragweed now; cedar not until December · Statewide; woods after rain

  Ragweed is the fall allergen, peaking around the turn of September into October. Cedar fever is not an October problem: Ashe juniper sheds pollen from mid-December to early March. After October rains, chanterelles, chicken of the woods, ringless honey mushrooms, oysters and puffballs appear in Central Texas woods, with a toxic jack-o’-lantern look-alike among them. Photograph, do not eat, unless an expert has confirmed the identification.

What are the mammals, reptiles and bugs doing?

• Bats leaving Austin

  October, in waves · Congress Avenue Bridge and the Hill Country caves

  The Mexican free-tailed females that raised pups under the Congress Avenue Bridge depart in October, often in partial migrations after fronts; a smaller number stay all winter. Bracken Cave’s public flights ended in September. If you find a bat on the ground, do not touch it; call animal control.

• Deer: the rut approaches

  Peaks Sept 30 – Oct 31 on the Gulf Prairies; November and December elsewhere · Statewide

  TPWD’s breeding study of 2,436 does puts October at the very start of the season for most of the state: breeding ranges open in October in the Post Oak Savannah, Edwards Plateau, Cross Timbers and Rolling Plains but peak in November (Post Oak Savannah Nov 10–11, Cross Timbers Nov 15–17, Piney Woods Nov 12–22, Edwards Plateau Nov 7 to Dec 5 from east to west), and in December in the Trans-Pecos (Dec 8) and South Texas (Dec 16–24). The one region whose peak falls in October is the Gulf Prairies and Marshes, Sept 30 in the north and Oct 31 in the south. Look for rubs on saplings and scrapes on the ground this month; the dusk-and-dawn watch page in the journal is for this.

• Snakes and alligators

  Snakes active on warm days; alligators slow from mid-October · Statewide; coast

  Temperatures of 80 to 90 °F are, in TPWD’s words, “probably the best and most comfortable” for snakes, and October has plenty of those days; rattlesnakes are mostly nocturnal. Watch where you put hands and feet. Alligators are mostly inactive from mid-October to early March but have not gone anywhere.

• Green darners and snout butterflies

  Darners through early November; snouts after rain · Statewide; South and Central Texas

  Common green darner dragonflies migrate south from late August into early November, peaking in September; hawk-watch counters at Bentsen–Rio Grande Valley State Park see them almost every day. American snout butterflies erupt in some years after late-summer and fall rains, drifting north in clouds; Texas A&M AgriLife says “we see this every year, but some years it is more noticeable than others.”

• Orb-weavers and walkingsticks

  Most visible now; orb-weavers to the first hard frost · Gardens, fence lines, porch lights

  The garden spiders have been here since spring, but October is when their webs are big enough to notice. They are not aggressive, and a bite is no worse than a bee sting for a healthy adult; most die with the first hard frost, leaving egg sacs behind. Two-striped walkingsticks are most abundant in late summer and fall as females lay eggs, often with a smaller male riding along; they can spray a defensive acid a foot away that stings the eyes, so look without handling.

• Fire ants, and what is not happening

  Mounds pop up after rain · Lawns, fields, trails

  New fire-ant mounds appear after October rains, and late August to mid-October is the recommended window for broadcast bait. The tarantula “migration” people ask about is a May-to-August event, and the crane flies of spring are months away.

What can families do outside in Texas this month?

Safety notes for October in Texas