What to look for in nature in Vermont this November

Where can you see snow geese and winter field birds in Vermont in November?

• The last of the snow geese

  Typical peak late October into the first week or so of November · Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area, Addison: the Route 17 viewing area west of Route 22A, and the end of Gage Road

  Vermont Fish & Wildlife’s Dead Creek brochure says goose numbers usually top out from the end of October into early November, so the opening days of this month are worth a drive. Shifting migration routes have cut the flock to roughly 5,000 birds, a quarter of the 20,000 that once stopped. When the geese are feeding at the far end of the refuge, the brochure points visitors to the end of Gage Road for a closer look. Stay outside the orange gates: the refuge is closed to people at all times, and the goose management areas are open to hunters by permit only.

• Snow buntings, horned larks and rough-legged hawks

  Arriving through November and staying into March · Gravel roads and field edges in Addison County, especially around Dead Creek and Gage Road

  The same brochure calls the colder months a good time for rough-legged hawks and snowy owls and suggests checking gravel roads and the edges of fields for flocks of snow buntings and horned larks. A lifting bunting flock looks like blown snow. Rough-legged hawks breed in the Arctic and hunt open country here in winter, often hovering in one place over a field before they drop on a vole. A Champlain Valley birding column also lists Lapland longspurs and northern shrikes among the field birds of late fall, so scan every bunting flock for a darker bird.

• Ducks on the big lake, and a two-week pause

  Lake Champlain zone duck season closed November 2–20, reopening November 21 · Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, Swanton; the Missisquoi delta and the northern bays

  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes Missisquoi as holding the largest concentration of waterfowl on Lake Champlain, and its trails are open year round from dawn to dusk. Divers such as scaup and goldeneyes build on the open lake as the shallow marshes skim over. This year the Lake Champlain duck season has a split: hunting stops after November 1 and resumes on November 21, so the middle of the month is a quieter time to walk the marsh edges. The Friends of Missisquoi lead their monthly bird-monitoring walk on Saturday, November 21, from 8 to 9 a.m. on the Maquam and Black Creek trail, 371 North River Street; no registration is needed.

• The hawk watch’s final days

  Daily count through Saturday, November 14 · Putney Mountain, Putney; a 0.7-mile walk from the parking area

  The Putney Mountain count runs from September 1 until the second Saturday of November, which is the 14th this year. The late flights are small but can be choice: rough-legged hawks and golden eagles are on the site list, and snow buntings pass over the summit in November. Go on a clear northwest-wind day, dressed for January.

When can Vermonters put bird feeders back up, and which winter finches are coming?

• December 1, not November 1

  Feed birds from December 1 to April 1 · Backyards statewide

  Vermont Fish & Wildlife recommends waiting until December 1 to hang feeders and taking them down by April 1, because black bears are still active in the fall. The department’s bear account explains why November is risky: when fall foods are scarce most bears den by mid-November, but when beechnuts and acorns are abundant they keep eating through the November snows and into December. State law makes feeding bears illegal, even by accident. If a bear does find your feeder after December 1, the department suggests taking it down for a week so the bear moves on to its den.

• Pine siskins and red crossbills

  Arriving from October; best in November and December · White pines, cedars, hemlocks and spruces

  In his September 27 outlook, finch forecaster Tyler Hoar rates the Northeast’s white pine and white cedar cone crops very good, with hemlock and spruce fair to good in places, and predicts a sizable irruption of pine siskins into the Northeastern states and more good numbers of red crossbills from Ontario to the northeastern United States. Listen in the tops of white pines for siskins’ rising, buzzy zzzreee and the crossbills’ hard kip notes; both feed on cones, so you may find them in the woods long before they visit a feeder.

• Purple finches, and probably few grosbeaks or redpolls

  Through the winter · Conifers, mountain-ash and birches

  The same forecast gives purple finches a moderate chance of moving south, helped by a strong mountain-ash crop. It expects only a small movement of evening grosbeaks, not much of a pine grosbeak flight, possibly a small flight of redpolls, and few Bohemian waxwings this far south.

• FeederWatch without a feeder

  Season opens November 1 and runs to April 30 · Any yard, porch or window view

  FeederWatch, a Cornell Lab and Birds Canada project, says you do not need feeders to take part: birds drawn to your shrubs, seed heads and water count too. Count on a pair of back-to-back days, at most weekly, recording the largest group of each species in view at once.

When is the deer rut in Vermont, and what are deer doing in November?

• Scrapes, rubs and bucks in daylight

  All month, most often at first and last light · Field edges, woods roads and old orchards statewide

  Look for saplings scraped bare a foot or two above the ground and for patches of pawed bare earth under a low branch, often along the edge of a hayfield.

• Toward the deer yards

  Late fall into winter, as snow deepens · Hemlock, spruce and fir stands, often on south- and east-facing slopes and along streams

  When the snow gets deep, many Vermont deer leave their summer range for wintering areas under evergreens. The department says these deer yards cover only seven to eight percent of the state’s forests, and that deer may travel 10 to 15 miles to reach them. The evergreen canopy catches snow in its branches, so it is shallower underneath, and holds in a little warmth on the coldest nights.

• Sharing the woods in rifle season

  Youth and novice weekend November 7–8; regular season November 14–29 · Most woods and fields, including state lands

  The 16-day regular deer season is Vermont’s busiest hunting stretch, and it covers both the middle weekend of the month and Thanksgiving. Dates for every season, and the orange advice, are in the safety section below.

How do Vermont’s bears, beavers and snowshoe hares get ready for winter?

• Bears heading for dens

  Most den from mid-November into December, depending on food · Brush piles, hollow trees, rock ledges and blowdowns

  The department’s black bear account says bears will keep feeding through the snows of November and into December in years when food is abundant, and den by mid-November when it is not. Females choose more sheltered dens than males, and their cubs, usually two, are born in late January or early February weighing only 8 to 10 ounces.

• Beavers and the food pile

  Busiest before the ponds ice over · Beaver ponds and slow streams statewide

  Vermont’s beavers do not hibernate. Instead they sink branches of favored trees into a large underwater pile near the lodge, a food cache they can reach under the ice all winter; the department reckons a family of eight needs about a ton of bark to get through. They work from late afternoon into the night, so the hour before dark is the time to sit quietly by a pond. Fresh pale chips around a pointed stump mean they are still cutting. The November full moon is often called the Beaver Moon, a name that fits this rush to finish before freeze-up.

• Snowshoe hares turning white

  The fall molt runs through autumn, timed largely by day length · Spruce, fir and cedar swamps and young conifer stands, especially in the mountains and the Northeast Kingdom

  Vermont Fish & Wildlife notes the snowshoe’s old name, the varying hare, for the way its coat changes from brown to white. A Northern Woodlands article by a wildlife ecologist explains that shortening days drive much of the timing, so a hare can be white before the snow arrives. Studies it describes found weekly survival dropped 7 to 12 percent when a hare’s coat did not match the ground, and New England showed the highest frequency of that mismatch. A patchy brown-and-white hare on bare November leaves is a good record for the mammal watch page.

Are salmon still running in Vermont rivers in November?

• The Winooski fish lift

  Fall operation through November 15 · Winooski One dam, Winooski

  The Low Impact Hydropower Institute’s certificate for the Winooski One project gives the fall lift season as October 1 through November 15. Salmon caught in the lift are loaded into a truck and released upstream of the project, some above the Essex 19 dam, where they can reach spawning gravel.

• Hatchery Cove stays closed

  Through November 30, 2026 · Hatchery Cove at the mouth of Hatchery Brook, Grand Isle

  A small fishing closure, 20 by 100 feet in front of Hatchery Brook, protects salmon as they move into the brook, where department staff collect eggs to raise fish for Lake Champlain.

Why are some Vermont trees still holding leaves in November?

• Beech and oak that hang on

  November through winter · Understory beech and young red oaks, especially on lower branches

  Botanists call this marcescence. Northern Woodlands magazine says you see it mostly on saplings and on a tree’s lowest limbs, and lists several ideas for why: the leaves may screen buds from deer and moose, guard twigs against frost, trap snow around the trunk like a fence, or drop in spring when the tree can use the nutrients. The author also allows that beech and oak may simply be partway along the evolutionary road to shedding every leaf in fall. A young beech in a gray November forest glows almost white in low sun; it is a fine subject for the tree-through-the-seasons plate.

• Bare tamaracks, full pine cones

  Tamaracks bare by early November; cones open through the winter · Bogs and wet lowlands for tamarack; white pine and cedar stands everywhere

  The golden tamaracks of late October have dropped their needles, leaving knobby twigs studded with small cones. Meanwhile the very good white pine and white cedar cone crops noted by the finch forecasters are hanging in the evergreens, food for red squirrels, crossbills and siskins. Pick up a fallen white pine cone and a cedar cone for the seeds, pods and cones page; they look nothing alike.

• The last flowers: witch hazel

  Into early November in sheltered spots · Hardwood understory and stream banks

  Witch hazel flowers late, and in a mild fall a few blossoms can hang on after its own leaves have dropped. Look for thread-thin yellow petals on bare twigs; the woody seed capsules from last year’s flowers sit on the same branches.

Has Vermont had its first freeze, and when does the first snow fall?

• First snow in the valleys

  Burlington’s average first measurable snow is around November 7 · Lowlands first get a coating; the mountains are often already white

  WCAX gives November 7 as Burlington’s average date for the first measurable snow. A study by the National Weather Service office in Burlington of records from 1906 to 2009 found wide year-to-year swings, with a trend line showing the first snow arriving about six days earlier over the century, from around November 12 to November 6. NOAA’s 1991–2020 normal snowfall for November at Burlington’s airport is 5.7 inches, and the high country gets much more.

How early does it get dark in Vermont in November?

What is November weather like in Vermont, and what could El Niño mean for the winter?

What can you see in Vermont’s night sky in November 2026?

• Taurid fireballs in the dark week

  Southern Taurids peak November 5, Northern Taurids November 12 · Radiant in Taurus, well up in the east by mid-evening

  The International Meteor Organization expects only about 5 to 10 Taurids an hour at best, but these slow meteors are known for occasional bright fireballs, and the new moon between the two peaks leaves the sky free of moonlight. On the morning of the 5th, the slim old moon stays down until the small hours, leaving the evening dark.

• Mars and Jupiter together, Venus and Mercury low

  Closest before dawn on November 15 and 16; Mercury best about November 18 to 25 · High in the south (Mars and Jupiter); low in the east-southeast (Venus, Mercury)

  Brilliant Jupiter and much dimmer, rust-colored Mars close to within about 1.2 degrees of each other in Leo, near the bright star Regulus. Low in the east-southeast, Venus is rising higher each dawn after its late-October pass of the sun, and it shines brightest of all, magnitude −4.9, from about November 24 to 27, Thanksgiving week. Mercury joins it low in the twilight in the week after November 18. Evenings offer only Saturn, in the south.

• The Leonids

  Before dawn on Wednesday, November 18 · Radiant in Leo, rising around midnight and highest just before dawn

  The International Meteor Organization’s 2026 calendar forecasts about 15 Leonids hourly at best, with the nominal peak falling at suppertime Eastern time on the 17th and no outburst predicted. The first-quarter moon sets around midnight, so the best window is from then until the sky brightens on the 18th.

• The Beaver Moon

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

  The moon is full about 30 hours before its closest approach to Earth this month, close enough that EarthSky and others list it as a supermoon, though a modest one; the December full moon will be nearer still. Overnight on the 23rd it crosses close to the Pleiades, too bright to let the cluster show well. Uranus, in Taurus, is at opposition on November 25: a binocular dot for those with a chart.

What can Vermont families do outdoors in November 2026?

Safety notes for November in Vermont