Alabama Nature Guide: August 2026
August is the last full month of the Alabama summer — still hot and humid, with watermelons, field peas, and the first muscadines at the markets and hummingbirds swarming the feeders. Fall shorebird migration builds on the coast and at Wheeler, the Perseid meteors streak the warm nights, and the first hints of autumn stir in the goldenrod.
What to look for this week
- Sandhill Cranes crowd the fields at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge at their winter peak, bugling over the Tennessee River, while Christmas Bird Counts wrap up across the state.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a short, sharp burst around January 3 — best after midnight from a dark Cumberland Plateau ridge or the unlit west end of Dauphin Island.
- Camellias, the state flower, open red, pink, and white against the cold in gardens across central and south Alabama and at Bellingrath Gardens near Mobile.
Birds This Month
August is when fall migration gathers real momentum in Alabama, even in the lingering heat. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds swarm the feeders and flowers, fueling for their southbound journey, and many feeders see their highest numbers of the year. The shorebird migration peaks at the mudflats of Wheeler NWR, the Gulf Coast, and farm ponds — Least, Pectoral, Semipalmated, and Stilt Sandpipers, Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs, Short-billed Dowitchers, and Pectoral Sandpipers work the flats.
The first wave of southbound songbirds moves through the woods — Louisiana and Northern Waterthrushes, Yellow, Worm-eating, Hooded, and Black-and-white Warblers, American Redstarts, and Yellow-throated Vireos — and the first Mississippi Kites begin to gather and stream south. On the coast, Brown Pelicans, terns, skimmers, and the first returning Reddish Egrets and migrant herons work the bays, and over the Mobile-Tensaw Delta the Swallow-tailed Kites stage before their early departure for South America. Resident Northern Cardinals and Carolina Wrens sing again as the heat begins, slowly, to break.
What's Blooming
August's wildflowers carry the late-summer heat-bloom toward the first stirrings of fall. The roadsides, prairies, and old fields glow with ironweed, Joe-Pye weed, native sunflowers, blazing star (liatris), black-eyed Susan, partridge pea, mountain mint, and the first goldenrod and asters opening — the leading edge of the great autumn show to come in the Black Belt prairies and the longleaf savannas.
In the wet places — the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, river margins, ponds, and ditches — the water-loving flowers peak: cardinal flower flames scarlet along the streams (a hummingbird magnet), and swamp sunflower, swamp milkweed, pickerelweed, lizard's tail, American lotus, and spider lily bloom. The passionflower (maypop) still flowers and now sets its egg-shaped green fruits along the fences. In gardens, the crepe myrtles, zinnias, lantana, cannas, hibiscus, salvias, and the first fall-blooming sasanqua camellias color up, and the spider lilies (hurricane lilies) burst red from bare stems after the late-summer rains — a beloved Southern sign of the turning season.
Garden This Month
August is the pivotal fall-planting month in the Alabama garden, even as the summer heat lingers. While the heat-loving crops still produce — okra, southern peas, eggplant, peppers, sweet potatoes, and the last tomatoes, squash, and melons — the real work shifts to the autumn garden. This is the time to direct-sow a second season of cool-season crops: collards, kale, turnips, mustard, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, radishes, and bush beans for a fall harvest, and to set out transplants of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and collards in the cooling evenings.
Keep watering deeply through the late-summer heat, especially the tender fall seedlings, and shade them through the hottest afternoons until they establish. Harvest okra and southern peas often, pull spent and disease-ridden summer plants to break pest cycles, and stay ahead of the still-strong hornworms, stink bugs, and fungal diseases. Sow a cover crop or add compost to any beds you're resting. The fall garden planted now will reward you through the long, mild Alabama autumn, often producing well past the first frost into winter — one of the great advantages of Southern gardening.
Zone 7b (north Alabama & Cumberland Plateau): the key fall-garden planting month. Direct-sow fall greens, lettuce, spinach, turnips, radishes, carrots, and beets, set out broccoli, cabbage, and collard transplants, and keep the summer harvest going while it lasts.
Zone 8a (central Alabama): plant the fall garden in earnest. Sow cool-season crops for autumn harvest, set out brassica transplants in the cooling evenings, keep watering through the heat, and harvest okra, southern peas, and the last summer tomatoes.
Zone 8b (lower Coastal Plain & Gulf Coast): still very hot, but fall planting starts. Begin sowing fall greens and root crops in shaded, well-watered beds, set out brassica transplants late in the month, and lean on heat-tolerant okra, southern peas, and sweet potatoes.
What's at the Farmers Market
August markets in Alabama still brim with the summer harvest while the first fall items appear. The tables hold the last great flush of summer — tomatoes, okra, field peas (purple hull and crowder), squash, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, sweet corn, and butterbeans — and the fruit is at its sweetest: ripe watermelons and cantaloupes, the muscadines and scuppernongs coming into their own, and late blackberries.
Fresh Gulf shrimp from Bayou La Batre remain at the markets, and bunches of herbs and cut flowers brighten the stands. Choose muscadines and scuppernongs plump, dry, and unbruised — the thick-skinned native Southern grape — and refrigerate, eating within several days; pick a watermelon heavy with a creamy-yellow ground spot; shell field peas soon after buying; and keep tomatoes at room temperature. Eat sweet corn the day you buy it, and keep Gulf shrimp iced cold. The markets are heavy with the last abundance of summer and the first taste of the turning season.
Night Sky This Month
August is the marquee stargazing month of the Alabama summer, thanks to the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks around August 12 — the year's most popular shower, throwing dozens of bright, fast meteors an hour from a dark site after midnight. The best viewing is from the state's dark-sky havens: the Von Braun Astronomical Society observatory at Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville (which often hosts public Perseid events), the Cumberland Plateau and Bankhead National Forest, and the unlit Gulf beaches of west Dauphin Island.
The summer Milky Way is at its glorious best, arching overhead through the Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb, and Altair and pouring down into Sagittarius and Scorpius low in the south, where the galaxy's core hides its richest star clouds, clusters, and nebulae — a binocular and telescope feast. Red Antares burns in the heart of the Scorpion. From a truly dark Alabama site, the Milky Way casts faint shadows. The printable Alabama night-sky guide lists this year's exact Perseid peak, planet positions, and the best dark-sky sites for your region.
Butterflies & Pollinators
August keeps Alabama's butterflies abundant as the late-summer broods peak. The gulf fritillaries swarm the passionflower vines in great numbers, especially in the south, and the cloudless sulphurs begin to build toward their fall surge, drifting strongly southward later in the season. The swallowtails still fly — eastern tiger, spicebush, black, pipevine, giant, zebra, and the coastal palamedes — and a new monarch brood feeds on the milkweed, the generation that will help build the fall migration.
The fields and gardens hum with variegated fritillaries, common buckeyes, pearl crescents, red-spotted purples, viceroys, hackberry and tawny emperors, question marks, American and painted ladies, little yellows, sleepy oranges, and clouds of grass skippers. The native nectar plants are at their richest now — ironweed, Joe-Pye weed, blazing star, goldenrod beginning, native sunflowers, and lantana — drawing butterflies all day. Watch the passionflower for gulf fritillary caterpillars and the milkweed for monarchs, and keep an eye on the goldenrod, which will soon become the great fuel station for the southbound monarch migration through Alabama in September and October.
Trees This Month
August's Alabama forests are in their deepest, most mature green, weathered by the long summer, and the trees turn their energy from flowering to fruiting. The crepe myrtle blooms on in every town, and the late-summer chaste tree (vitex) and second flushes of southern magnolia persist, but the dominant story now is the ripening harvest. The acorns swell and begin to ripen on the oaks, the hickory nuts and the pecans fatten, and the pine cones mature and start to open on the longleaf, loblolly, and shortleaf pines.
The fruit trees feed the wildlife — wild persimmons ripen and sweeten, blackgum (tupelo) berries darken and begin to draw the first migrating birds, the black cherry and mulberry finish, and the sassafras, sumac, and dogwood berries color up. The very first hints of fall appear — a few blackgum, sumac, and dogwood leaves redden early in the woods and along the roadsides, and the drought-stressed trees of a dry late summer drop a few tired leaves. The forest stands heavy and full, poised on the edge of the long, colorful Alabama autumn.
Go deeper with the Alabama guides
The complete Alabama birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: August in Arizona · August in Arkansas · August in California