Delaware Nature Guide: November 2026
November is the arrival of winter in Delaware — the trees mostly bare, the first hard frosts, and the great wintering waterfowl spectacle building to its full force at Bombay Hook and Prime Hook. The Snow Geese and ducks pour in, making this one of the finest months of the Delaware birding year.
What to look for this week
- Tens of thousands of snow geese crowd the Bombay Hook impoundments, rising in roaring white clouds — the heart of Delaware's winter waterfowl spectacle.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short, sharp burst around January 3; watch the northeast after midnight from a dark Cape Henlopen or lower-Sussex site.
- A kitchen-table planning week — order seeds and sketch beds, leaving any snow banked over perennials as insulation against the coastal-plain freeze-thaw.
- American holly, the state tree, stands glossy and red-berried through the bare coastal-plain woods, the signature green of the Delaware winter.
Birds This Month
November is a marquee birding month in Delaware as the wintering waterfowl reach full numbers. Bombay Hook and Prime Hook fill with tens of thousands of snow geese rising in roaring white clouds, joined by Canada geese, growing flocks of tundra swans, and a rich assembly of ducks — northern pintail, American wigeon, green-winged teal, gadwall, northern shoveler, black ducks, mallards, and the first tundra swans trumpeting over the marsh. It is one of the great waterfowl gatherings of the East.
The last migrants pass — late sparrows, kinglets, and hermit thrushes — and the wintering birds settle in: dark-eyed juncos, white-throated sparrows, and yellow-rumped warblers in the bayberry. On the coast at Cape Henlopen and the Indian River Inlet, the sea ducks return — scoters, long-tailed ducks, buffleheads, and red-throated loons — and northern harriers, bald eagles, and short-eared owls hunt the salt marsh.
This month's tip: drive the Bombay Hook auto-tour loop near dawn or dusk to witness the full snow goose spectacle as the flocks lift and resettle — November and the cold months that follow are the peak of one of Delaware's signature natural events.
What's Blooming
By November the Delaware flowering year is essentially over, ended by the hard frosts. The very last stragglers may persist in sheltered spots — a few asters and witch hazel, whose spidery yellow flowers are the latest native bloom in the woods, lingering after the leaves drop. What the season now offers is structure, fruit, and held color: the scarlet berries of winterberry holly glowing in the bay-shore swamps as the leaves fall away, and the green-and-red of American holly, the state tree, standing out as the woods go bare.
The grasses come into their own as the dominant November display: switchgrass, little bluestem, and the marsh cordgrasses turn tawny gold and russet, catching the low light across the fields and tidal marshes of Bombay Hook and Prime Hook. The split milkweed pods release the last of their silk, and the dark blue-green of eastern red cedar studs the old fields. The landscape settles into the muted, textural palette of the coming winter.
Garden This Month
November is the put-the-garden-to-bed month in Delaware. Frost has ended the tender crops statewide, but the hardiest fall vegetables hang on, sweetened by the cold — kale, collards, Brussels sprouts, spinach, and leeks can be harvested into and through the month, especially under row cover or a low tunnel in the milder lower counties. Finish lifting and curing any storage crops, and harvest the last carrots and beets or heavily mulch them to hold in the ground.
This is the time for the final cleanup and protection: mulch the garlic bed and tender perennials after the ground begins to cool, plant any remaining spring bulbs, and water in newly planted trees and shrubs before the soil freezes. Drain and store hoses and irrigation, clean and oil tools, and store dahlia tubers and tender bulbs lifted after the frost. Leave seed heads, some leaf litter, and standing perennial stems for the overwintering insects and the birds — a tidy garden is less valuable to wildlife than one left a little wild. With the beds put down, the planning-and-catalog season of deep winter is just ahead.
Zone 7a (northern New Castle County): frost has arrived and growth has stopped — finish cleanup, mulch tender perennials and the garlic bed, drain and store hoses, and plant any remaining spring bulbs while the soil is still workable.
Zone 7b (Kent, Sussex, and the coast): the mild lower counties may still hold unfrosted greens — keep harvesting frost-sweetened kale, collards, and spinach under cover, and there is still time to plant garlic and tuck in spring bulbs.
What's at the Farmers Market
November markets in Delaware turn squarely to the storage and cold-season harvest. The fall crops anchor the stands — winter squash, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts — alongside apples in full keeping varieties and frost-sweetened greens: kale, collards, spinach, and the last broccoli and cauliflower. Fresh cider is at its peak, and the markets stock up for the holidays.
Look also for local honey, eggs, dried beans, jarred preserves, and at some markets the last Delaware Bay blue crabs of the season in mild spells — choose live, lively, heavy crabs and cook them the day you buy. Choose firm, heavy roots and winter squash with hard, unblemished rinds and store them cool and dark; apples held cold and separate keep for weeks. Brussels sprouts and the frost-touched greens are at their sweetest of the year now. As the outdoor markets begin to close for the season, the table leans fully on the durable harvest that will carry through winter.
Night Sky This Month
November brings long, dark nights and the return of the brilliant winter sky. The Pleiades star cluster and the orange eye of Taurus, Aldebaran, climb high in the evening, and by late night Orion stands fully risen in the southeast with Sirius following — the great winter constellations are back. Overhead, the autumn figures of Pegasus, Andromeda, and Cassiopeia still ride high, the Andromeda Galaxy faintly visible from a dark site.
The Leonid meteor shower peaks in mid-November, radiating from Leo as it rises after midnight; it is usually modest but has produced historic storms in rare years, and even a normal showing brings swift, bright meteors from a dark Delaware sky. The cold, dry air gives crisp, transparent views as the year's best stargazing season begins. Seek the darkest skies at Cape Henlopen and the lower Sussex coast, away from the Wilmington and Dover glow.
Exact planet positions and this year's Leonid peak timing vary year to year — the printable Delaware night-sky guide carries the current dates and viewing details for your region.
Butterflies & Pollinators
November all but ends the Delaware butterfly year. The cold has stopped the migration and most flight, but on an unseasonably warm, sunny afternoon early in the month a few hardy species may still appear: a common buckeye on the open dunes, an orange or clouded sulphur over a clover field, a cabbage white, or one of the overwintering mourning cloaks or eastern commas roused for a brief flight before retreating. After the first hard freezes, even these vanish.
The state's butterflies are now settling into their overwintering forms across the coastal plain: mourning cloaks, commas, and question marks tuck behind loose bark and into woodpiles and hollow trees along the wooded stream corridors of White Clay Creek and the Brandywine; the swallowtails hang as chrysalides anchored to twigs in the moist woods; and the monarchs have completed their journey to the Mexican mountains. Leaving leaf litter, brush piles, and standing stems undisturbed through the winter is the single best thing a Delaware gardener can do to carry these dormant butterflies safely to spring.
Trees This Month
November is when Delaware's woods go bare and the evergreens take over the winter landscape. The last fall color drops early in the month — the oaks hold their russet and bronze longest, with the young white oaks and American beech keeping tan, papery leaves into winter through marcescence — and by month's end the deciduous canopy stands gray and open. The bald cypress at Trap Pond finishes dropping its rust-colored needles, bare over the dark swamp.
Now the evergreens define the woods: the glossy, reddening American holly, the state tree, stands out across the coastal plain, the dark loblolly pines of southern Sussex carry the canopy, and the eastern red cedars stud the old fields and fencerows. The bare hardwoods reveal their winter character — the mottled trunks of sycamore bright along the Brandywine and Christina, the shaggy bark of shagbark hickory, the spiky seed balls still hanging on the sweetgums, and the broad silhouettes of the upland white and willow oaks. The First State woods have settled into their long winter form.
Go deeper with the Delaware guides
The complete Delaware birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: November in Washington, D.C. · November in Florida · November in Georgia