Oregon Nature Guide: November 2026
November settles into the wet season — the valley grays over with rain, the refuges fill with wintering waterfowl, and the southbound gray whales pass the headlands. The Klamath eagles gather and the high country takes its first deep snows.
What to look for this week
- The Klamath Basin is at peak — thousands of wintering Bald Eagles hunt the rafts of snow geese, pintail, and tundra swans on Lower Klamath and Tule Lake.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short sharp burst around January 3; watch the northeast after midnight from a dark site like the Oregon Outback near Lakeview.
- Dungeness crab season is in full swing on the coast — fresh-cooked crab from Newport and Garibaldi is sweet, full, and at its best value now.
- In the mild Willamette Valley, prune dormant apples and pears and plant bare-root fruit on a dry window between the rains.
Birds This Month
November fills Oregon with its winter birds. The Willamette Valley refuges — Finley, Ankeny, Baskett Slough, Sauvie Island — and the Klamath Basin teem with cackling and dusky Canada geese, white-fronted and snow geese, northern pintail, wigeon, green-winged teal, and tundra swans. Wintering Bald Eagles build in the Klamath country, and sandhill cranes roost on the wet fields.
On the coast, the gray whale migration peaks as the whales stream south past the headlands — a December-into-spring spectacle that begins in earnest now. Offshore, scoters, loons, grebes, and long-tailed ducks raft up, brant winter in the bays, and black turnstones and surfbirds work the rocks. In the valley woods, varied thrushes, spotted towhees, golden-crowned sparrows, and resident Anna's hummingbirds hold at feeders. Watch for irruptive pine siskins and evening grosbeaks.
What's Blooming
November's bloom is sparse, but Oregon's mild maritime west never goes fully bare. The fall-blooming strawberry tree (Arbutus) and the native Pacific madrone hold their last white flower clusters and ripening berries on the coast and southwest hills. In gardens and arboretums, the late asters, chrysanthemums, and cyclamen hederifolium finish, and the very first winter heath, sweet box, and fragrant viburnum begin in sheltered spots.
The state flower, Oregon grape, holds its holly-like foliage flushed bronze-purple in the cold, with the first buds visible. The forest floor's real show now is fungal — the famous Oregon fall mushroom flush of chanterelles, boletes, and amanitas in the wet conifer duff. The first rains have greened the dry hills with fresh grass and the rosettes of next spring's wildflowers. East of the Cascades, the sage steppe is brown and dormant under the first snows.
Garden This Month
November turns the western Oregon garden to overwintering and rest. Harvest the standing winter crops — kale, chard, leeks, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, and purple sprouting broccoli — and mulch root crops like carrots and beets to hold them in the ground through the mild winter. Finish planting garlic, and on dry windows plant bare-root fruit trees, cane fruit, and roses while dormant.
Spread compost, ensure cover crops are established, and clean up fallen leaves and spent plants to reduce overwintering slugs and disease. Protect tender plants and overwintered greens with cloches against the occasional valley frost, and keep off saturated soil to avoid compaction — wet, not cold, is the western gardener's main concern. Drain and store hoses. East of the Cascades, the high-desert garden sleeps under snow; check stored produce and the depth of the garlic mulch.
Zone 6b (Bend & high desert): the garden is dormant under snow and hard freeze. Check stored squash and onions, ensure garlic mulch is deep, and plan next year's short-season varieties.
Zone 8a (Willamette Valley): harvest overwintering kale, leeks, and Brussels sprouts as needed, finish planting garlic, and mulch root crops to hold them in the ground. Plant bare-root trees and roses on a dry window and protect cloches from wind.
Zone 8b (southwest valleys & coast): the mild winter garden keeps growing; harvest greens, sow a last round of fava beans and hardy lettuce under cover, and plant bare-root fruit. The frost-free coast cuts greens all winter.
What's at the Farmers Market
November markets settle into the storage-and-harvest pantry of the Oregon fall. Fresh hazelnuts from the Willamette Valley harvest are at their peak and abundant, and the Hood River and Gorge pears and apples are in full storage supply. The vegetable stalls hold winter squash, pumpkins, potatoes, onions, leeks, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, parsnips, and hardy greens for the Thanksgiving table.
Wild chanterelles and other foraged mushrooms continue from the wet forests, and the coast's Dungeness crab season opens for winter — the year's prized catch begins landing fresh and sweet. Choose hazelnuts heavy in the shell, store storage pears at room temperature to ripen and apples cold, and keep squash and onions in a cool, dry, airy place. Buy crab heavy for its size and use it the same day. A hearty pre-holiday market month rooted in Oregon's harvest.
Night Sky This Month
November's long, dark nights are superb for stargazing whenever the western rains pause, and the eastern high desert stays clearer. The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary near Lakeview and Prineville Reservoir State Park offer pristine, transparent autumn skies, and the high desert around the Steens and Bend is at its crisp, cold best — though Pine Mountain Observatory closes its public season for winter. Bundle up and chase the clear windows.
The winter stars are returning to dominance: brilliant Capella in Auriga and the Pleiades ride high in the east, Taurus and the Hyades climb, and Orion rises in the late evening, his nebula glowing in the sword. The Andromeda Galaxy and the Double Cluster sit near the zenith. The Leonid meteor shower peaks around mid-November, radiating from Leo rising after midnight. The cold, dry air gives excellent transparency; the printable Oregon night-sky guide gives this year's planet positions and best dark-sky dates.
Butterflies & Pollinators
November is among the quietest butterfly months in Oregon, but the mild western valleys can still rouse an overwintering adult on a rare warm, sunny afternoon. The California tortoiseshell and mourning cloak, which hibernate as adults in bark crevices, woodpiles, and unheated outbuildings, may briefly emerge to bask before settling back in, and an angled comma can do the same at a sheltered woodland edge in the Willamette Valley or Coast Range.
Otherwise the state's butterflies are dormant — hibernating as adults, overwintering as chrysalids fastened to stems and bark, or waiting out the cold as eggs and partly grown caterpillars in the leaf litter. Oregon's monarchs are now clustered in their coastal California overwintering groves for the season. East of the Cascades, the snow-locked high desert holds nothing on the wing. Leave the brush piles, fallen leaves, and standing perennial stems undisturbed; they are the winter shelter for next spring's first butterflies.
Trees This Month
November strips the last leaves from western Oregon's deciduous trees and returns the landscape to its evergreen winter form. The bigleaf maples, Oregon ash, cottonwoods, and red alders drop their leaves in the valley and along the streams, and the western larch sheds its golden needles in the eastside and Cascade forests — the brief deciduous-conifer show closing for the year. The Oregon white oak holds rusty leaves late on the savanna.
The conifers reassert themselves: the state tree, Douglas-fir, with western hemlock, western redcedar, grand fir, and coastal Sitka spruce, carry the wet-west forest deep green through the rains, dripping in fog and mist. The evergreen Pacific madrone and tanoak hold the southwest hills, and the eastside ponderosa pine and western juniper stand over the first snows. The licorice ferns and moss revive on the bare maple limbs in the returning wet.
Go deeper with the Oregon guides
The complete Oregon birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: November in Pennsylvania · November in Rhode Island · November in South Carolina