Pennsylvania Nature Guide: November 2026
November is the threshold of winter in Pennsylvania — the leaves down and the woods bare, the golden eagles peaking over the ridges, vast flocks of geese and tundra swans on the move, and the first hard freezes settling the land into its long cold rest.
What to look for this week
- Feeders are at their winter peak across Pennsylvania — cardinals, chickadees, titmice, and juncos work the seed while the last Christmas Bird Counts wrap up statewide.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short, sharp burst around January 3 — watch after midnight from a dark plateau like Cherry Springs State Park.
- A planning week — review last season and order seeds early, before the popular short-season varieties for the northern tier sell out.
Birds This Month
November is the late-migration and arrival month. The raptor flights over Hawk Mountain reach their grand finale: this is the peak of the golden eagle migration along the Appalachian ridges, joined by late red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks, bald eagles, northern goshawks, and rough-legged hawks. The waterfowl migration is at full flood — big flocks of tundra swans, snow geese, Canada geese, and rafts of diving ducks (scaup, canvasback, ruddy duck, mergansers) move down the rivers and onto the lakes and impoundments.
The winter birds settle in for the season: dark-eyed juncos, white-throated and American tree sparrows, yellow-rumped warblers, and golden-crowned kinglets fill the brushy edges, and feeders draw cardinals, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, and woodpeckers in growing numbers. In an irruption year, the first pine siskins, purple finches, or evening grosbeaks may appear. Late lingering migrants and the occasional rarity turn up, and the early Christmas Bird Count season approaches. Keep the feeders full as the cold deepens.
What's Blooming
November ends Pennsylvania's wildflower year. After the hard frosts, the meadows have shifted fully to their winter architecture — the dried seed-heads of goldenrod, aster, joe-pye weed, ironweed, coneflower, and black-eyed Susan stand brown and rattling above the fallen leaves, and the milkweed pods split to release the last of their silk on the wind. These standing stems and seed-heads are vital winter food for finches and sparrows and shelter for overwintering insects.
The last living bloom is the native witch hazel, whose spidery yellow ribbons can still hang in the understory in the warmer south early in the month — Pennsylvania's latest-blooming wildflower. In the woods, the evergreen ground plants keep their green into winter: wintergreen (teaberry) with its red berries, partridgeberry, and Christmas fern. In gardens, the last hardy mums and asters finish, and the ornamental grasses stand tall and tawny. Leave the seed-heads and stems standing through winter for the wildlife.
Garden This Month
November is the cleanup-and-bed-down month for Pennsylvania gardens, racing the hard freeze. Harvest the last cold-hardy crops — frost-sweetened kale, collards, spinach, leeks, Brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, and turnips — and dig and store the final root crops before the ground freezes solid. Pull and compost spent plants, but clear away diseased material entirely to limit next year's problems.
Finish the fall planting: get any remaining garlic and spring bulbs in the ground, and mulch the garlic, strawberries, and tender perennials with straw or shredded leaves once the soil chills. Drain and store hoses, shut off and insulate outdoor spigots, clean and oil tools, and empty and store pots. Spread shredded leaves and compost over the beds to protect and feed the soil over winter. Leave perennial stems, seed-heads, and leaf litter standing for the overwintering pollinators and the birds — a tidy garden is a poor one for wildlife. Then let the garden rest.
Zone 5b (Allegheny & northern uplands): hard frost and the first snows arrive. Finish all cleanup, mulch garlic and tender perennials heavily, drain and store hoses, and put the garden fully to bed for the long northern winter.
Zone 6b (much of central & western PA): the killing frosts settle in. Harvest the last frost-hardy greens and roots, finish planting garlic and bulbs, mulch beds, and clean and store tools before the ground freezes.
Zone 7a (southeastern Piedmont): the mildest corner still grows hardy greens under cover. Harvest cold-frame kale and spinach, finish bulb and garlic planting, mulch tender plants, and tidy beds before the deeper cold.
What's at the Farmers Market
November markets turn to the storage harvest and the Thanksgiving table. The stands are full of winter squash, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, leeks, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, carrots, beets, parsnips, turnips, and frost-sweetened kale and collards. Apples from Adams County and statewide orchards are at their storage best, alongside fresh apple cider and the last pears.
Pennsylvania's Kennett Square mushrooms stay abundant — a holiday-table staple — and honey, dried beans, eggs, cheeses, and cut greens round out the offerings as winter markets and farm stands stock up. Choose squash and pumpkins with hard rinds and intact stems for long keeping; pick firm, heavy apples and store them cold; and keep root crops cold and humid in the cellar. This is the moment to lay in the storage crops that will carry through the winter, when fresh local produce grows scarce until the spring greens return.
Night Sky This Month
November's long, dark, cold nights mark the return of the brilliant winter sky. After dusk, the autumn Great Square of Pegasus still rides high, but by mid-evening the Pleiades star cluster, orange Aldebaran in the V-shaped Hyades, and rising Orion climb the eastern sky, with brilliant Capella and the twins of Gemini close behind. The Andromeda Galaxy stands nearly overhead, at its best for binoculars.
The Leonid meteor shower peaks around mid-November, a modest shower most years (with rare storm outbursts on a roughly 33-year cycle) radiating from Leo, best after midnight from a dark site. The cold, dry air now gives superb transparency for deep-sky observing at places like Cherry Springs State Park. Dress warmly and watch the winter constellations return night by night. The printable Pennsylvania night-sky guide lists this year's exact Leonid peak, planet positions, and the best dark-sky sites near you as the long-night season begins.
Butterflies & Pollinators
November all but ends Pennsylvania's butterfly season. On a rare warm, sunny afternoon early in the month, a hardy mourning cloak, eastern comma, or question mark — the species that overwinter as adults — may briefly emerge to bask before retreating to its winter shelter behind bark or in a woodpile. The last few cabbage whites or sulphurs may flutter over a sheltered, frost-spared corner, but the cold quickly shuts the season down.
The monarchs are long gone, the last of them well to the south on their way to Mexico. The rest of Pennsylvania's butterflies are now settled into their winter quarters all around the garden and woods: the swallowtails as chrysalises camouflaged on twigs, the great spangled fritillaries as tiny caterpillars in the leaf litter, and countless skippers and whites as eggs and larvae among the standing stems. Leaving the leaf litter, hollow stems, and brush piles undisturbed through winter is the single best thing a gardener can do to protect next year's butterflies.
Trees This Month
November strips Pennsylvania's forests to their winter bones. The last of the fall color falls — the stubborn oaks hold their wine-red and russet leaves longest, and the American beech and young oaks keep their bleached, papery marcescent leaves rattling on the branches well into winter. By mid-month the canopy is mostly bare, and the woods open to the gray sky, revealing the structure of every trunk and limb.
This is the month to read bark and form again — the shaggy shagbark hickory, the smooth gray beech, the broken-plate black cherry, and the ghostly white upper limbs of the sycamore along the streams. The conifers now define the landscape: the dark eastern hemlock, the state tree, in the gorges, the soft-needled eastern white pine on the slopes, and the red spruce on the high northern ridges. The tamaracks have dropped their golden needles in the bogs. Buds are set and waiting, and the woods settle into their long winter rest.
Go deeper with the Pennsylvania guides
The complete Pennsylvania birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: November in Rhode Island · November in South Carolina · November in South Dakota