November can be a month of contrasts in Virginia. It's still not winter, but it can be as cold and miserable. Its the middle part of what we call fall, but it often gets warm enough to fool forsythia, flowering quince, and even cherry trees into blooming. Most hunters finally get their long anticipated chance to go afield in November with the opening of the various hunting seasons. Anglers too, benefit from a flurry of feeding action as fish prepare for a short season of relative inactivity. It's a month when resident wildlife are preparing to survive winter and when northern breeding migrants are high tailing it south to warmer climes on the breath of Arctic winds.

     Wildlife watchers can look for the first influx of twinkling, flashing flocks of juncos to Virginia. To many, they are known as snowbirds, because they seem to arrive just in advance of the first, snowy weather. With them come white-throated sparrows, which will feed heartily all winter on the ground in the hedgerows, in our shrubs or under our bird feeders.

     The first week of November also usually sees the first major appearances of open water waterfowl such as goldeneyes, buffleheads, mergansers, scaups, canvasbacks, scoters, and old squaws. Large flocks from a distance are like a moving mass on the horizon, resembling a swarm of insects. 

     Goldeneyes, buffleheads and mergansers usually fly in pairs or small groups but scaup, "cans," and sea ducks normally move in larger flocks. Arctic breeding Canada geese, snow geese, and tundra swans make their initial appearances to Virginia about this time. New arrivals are those flocks coming in at great heights, possibly even riding the lower edges of the jet stream.

     In the flat croplands of Northern Neck and Tidewater, look for kestrels, meadowlarks, horned larks, and northern harriers. Low-flying harriers—formerly known as marsh hawks—tack back and forth over grassy fields, scanning for rodents. The dark brown females with white rump patch, are larger than the grayish males, and are most noticeable. 

     Veteran's Day (November 11), originally known as Armistice Day, and the days either side of it, is often a period of stormy weather. Every year about that time, it seems as if a big cold front sweeps southeasterly to meet with warm, moist air from the south to bring wind and precipitation. Occasionally, the weather system breaches the Appalachians into Virginia.

     On Armistice Day, 1940, as many as 80 duck hunters died in the Midwest when Gulf air collided with a massive Arctic cold front. Balmy weather turned nasty and rainy, then it turned to sleet and finally to snow. Straightaway winds of 80 miles per hour were recorded. LaCrosse, Wisconsin on the Mississippi River recorded an all time low barometric pressure of 28.73! Temperatures dropped from the 70s to the teens in hours. Lake Michigan had 30-foot seas and took 65 lives alone! On November 17 about 35 years later, the coal and iron ship, Edmund Fitzgerald, went down with a load of taconite in a similar storm on Lake Superior.

     By the third week, most leaf color is gone as cold rains and wind bring them down. Sweet gum is one tree that goes through a wide array of color changes--yellows, orange, red and purple. One November, I noticed a clump of my backyard sweet gum was going through its sequence of color changes considerably later than the rest of the three. The "mystery" was solved one night when I belatedly flipped on the backyard floodlight which served as a night light. It shone directly on that clump of leaves, apparently keeping the photosynthesis process operating a little longer than normal.

     There's more to see in November. Like the kingfisher I saw one year, flying in low, tight circles over Bear Creek Lake (Cumberland), as many as five or six times before plunging into the water to catch a fish it had been monitoring. In southeastern Virginia look for gulls, crows, and grackles feeding side by side in a harvested peanut field gleaning leftovers. On the mudflats along the coasts and tidal rivers, look for dunlins in a different plumage than it had in spring when it it used to be called red-backed sandpiper. 

     November is a time to marvel at the productivity of the land when you pick up your sweet potatoes from a Virginia Beach farmer. Its also a time of turkeys and Thanksgiving. A time to be thankful for living in a country made great by its inspired founding fathers and by its physical blessings. A shovel full of Iowa dirt will grow more than many square miles of North African desert! Its been said that the world could probably be fed on what we could grow on our median strips! Even with the tremendous abuse we continue to inflict upon it, our land is still the richest in the world!

     November is a time to take time to be thankful, although we should do it daily! Thankful for the privilege to travel freely across boundaries marked only on a map or by a welcome sign. Thankful for the privilege of being able to hunt, fish, boat and enjoy our amazing outdoors in the ways available to us. November should be a reminder to us to be thankful for what we have.