Alabama Nature Guide: June 2026
June brings the full heat and abundance of the Alabama summer — Chilton County peaches and the first tomatoes flood the markets, Gulf shrimp boats work the bays, fireflies fill the warm evenings, and Swallow-tailed Kites soar over the delta. The breeding birds tend nests in the green, humid woods as the year reaches its longest days.
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
June is the heart of the nesting season in Alabama, with the dawn chorus still strong in the early-summer woods. Resident and breeding birds are busy with second broods — Northern Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, Brown Thrashers, Eastern Bluebirds, Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, and Eastern Towhees — while the deep-woods breeders sing on: Wood Thrush, Summer Tanager, Red-eyed Vireo, Acadian Flycatcher, Ovenbird, and the warblers in the swamps and coves.
On the coast, the beach-nesting birds are at their most sensitive — Least Terns, Black Skimmers, Wilson's Plovers, and American Oystercatchers tend eggs and chicks on the sand at Dauphin Island and the Fort Morgan peninsula, and Brown Pelicans raise young on the islands; give nesting areas a wide berth. In the longleaf, Bachman's Sparrow, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker tend nests, and Painted Buntings sing from the coastal scrub. Over the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, the elegant Swallow-tailed and Mississippi Kites soar, and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds work the gardens.
What's Blooming
June settles Alabama into its summer bloom, the show shifting to the sun-loving prairie and roadside flowers and the high-summer garden. The state wildflower, the oakleaf hydrangea, still flowers on shaded bluffs in north and central Alabama, fading to dusty rose. The roadsides and old fields glow with black-eyed Susan, coreopsis, Indian blanket, butterfly weed, purple coneflower, beebalm, mountain mint, rattlesnake master, and Queen Anne's lace.
The Black Belt prairies and longleaf savannas bloom with native sunflowers, blazing star, and spiderwort, and in the wet ditches and along the delta the first swamp milkweed, pickerelweed, and buttonbush open. In the southern Coastal Plain, the passionflower (maypop) vine sets its intricate purple-and-white flowers along fences. In gardens, the daylilies, gardenias, crepe myrtles (beginning their long Southern bloom), hydrangeas, zinnias, lantana, and black-eyed Susans are in full color, and the native trumpet creeper and coral honeysuckle draw the hummingbirds.
Garden This Month
June is the high-summer harvest month in the Alabama garden, the heat and humidity now intense across the state. The warm-season crops pour in — pick tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, eggplant, peppers, and the first okra and southern peas — and the heat-loving Southern staples hit their stride. Keep harvesting daily to keep plants productive, and plant successions of beans, okra, southern peas, cucumbers, and squash for a continued supply through the long season.
Water deeply in the early morning — an inch or more a week — and mulch heavily to hold moisture and keep the soil cool. Stake and prune tomatoes, side-dress heavy feeders, and stay vigilant against the now-rampant pests and diseases: tomato hornworms, squash vine borers and squash bugs, stink bugs, cucumber beetles, and the fungal blights and downy mildews that thrive in the humidity. Pull weeds before they seed and steal water. In the warmest south, give cool-loving plants afternoon shade. The garden is at its most productive and most demanding as the full force of the Alabama summer arrives.
Zone 7b (north Alabama & Cumberland Plateau): the summer garden is in full production. Harvest squash, cucumbers, and beans daily, keep tomatoes staked and side-dressed, plant another round of southern peas and okra, and water deeply and mulch as the heat sets in.
Zone 8a (central Alabama): peak summer harvest and heat. Pick tomatoes, beans, squash, and cucumbers constantly, keep okra and southern peas growing, water deeply in the morning, and watch for stink bugs, hornworms, and fungal blights in the humidity.
Zone 8b (lower Coastal Plain & Gulf Coast): the intense coastal heat and humidity are here. Harvest heat-lovers like okra, southern peas, eggplant, and peppers, shade and water cool-loving crops, and watch for downy mildew and other diseases that thrive in the wet warmth.
What's at the Farmers Market
June is one of the most abundant months at Alabama markets, the summer harvest pouring in. The stars are the fruit: Chilton County peaches are at their famous peak from the Clanton orchards, and blueberries and blackberries ripen across the state, alongside the first real flood of tomatoes — including prized Sand Mountain and heirloom field tomatoes. The vegetable tables overflow with squash, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, sweet corn, new potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and the first okra.
Fresh Gulf shrimp from Bayou La Batre are at the markets as the season runs strong, and bunches of herbs, green onions, and cut flowers brighten the stands. Choose peaches fragrant and giving slightly at the seam — ripen firm ones on the counter, then refrigerate once soft; pick tomatoes heavy and fragrant and keep them at room temperature, never the refrigerator; eat sweet corn the day you buy it; and refrigerate berries dry and unwashed, using within days. Choose Gulf shrimp that smell of clean seawater and keep them iced cold. The markets are at their bright, generous summer best.
Night Sky This Month
June's short, warm, often hazy and humid nights are the trade-off for the return of the summer Milky Way. The June solstice around June 20 brings the year's longest day and shortest night, so the sky darkens late. Alabama's dark-sky havens — the Von Braun Astronomical Society observatory at Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville, the Cumberland Plateau, the Bankhead National Forest, and the unlit Gulf beaches of west Dauphin Island — still offer the clearest views away from the city lights.
The Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb, and Altair climbs high in the east, and the rich summer Milky Way begins to arch up behind it, brightest toward Sagittarius and Scorpius low in the south, where red Antares marks the Scorpion's heart and the galaxy's core hides the densest star clouds. The keystone of Hercules rides overhead with its great M13 globular cluster. There is no major meteor shower this month — a fine time instead for the deep-sky clusters and nebulae of Sagittarius from a dark site. The printable Alabama night-sky guide lists this year's exact planet positions and the best dark-sky sites for your region.
Butterflies & Pollinators
June keeps Alabama's butterflies abundant as the summer broods build. The swallowtails remain the showpieces — eastern tiger, spicebush, black, pipevine, giant, zebra, and the coastal palamedes swallowtails work the gardens, wood edges, and roadside flowers. The summer brood of monarchs flies and lays on the milkweed, and gulf fritillaries begin building in numbers on the passionflower vines, especially in the south.
The fields and gardens fill with variegated fritillaries, pearl crescents, common buckeyes, red admirals, question marks, red-spotted purples, cloudless sulphurs, sleepy oranges, little yellows, and clouds of grass skippers — fiery, Zabulon, sachem, and silver-spotted skippers — at the blooming clover, milkweed, coneflower, and mountain mint. In the longleaf and prairie, the satyrs drift low through the grass. Warm, humid June evenings also bring the first big firefly displays — not butterflies, but among the most magical of the Alabama summer's flying insects. Watch the native flower beds in the morning and late afternoon, when nectaring is heaviest and the midday heat eases.
Trees This Month
June's Alabama forests are in deep, full summer green, and the summer-flowering trees take over from the spring bloomers. The grand show is the southern magnolia, opening its huge, fragrant, creamy-white flowers across the Coastal Plain and Black Belt — the quintessential tree of the Deep South. The native sourwood hangs its fragrant white bell-flowers (beloved by bees), the basswood (linden) perfumes the woods, and the chinaberry and mimosa flower along roadsides and old home places.
The flowering shifts to the long-blooming ornamentals of summer — the crepe myrtle, the signature flowering tree of Southern towns, begins its months-long display of pink, red, white, and lavender, and the vitex (chastetree) blooms blue. In the wet woods and the delta, the buttonbush, sweetbay magnolia, and swamp tupelo flower. The developing fruits swell — the green acorns growing on the oaks, the winged seeds forming on the maples and ashes, the small green cones on the pines, and the first ripening fruit on the mulberry, black cherry, and serviceberry drawing the birds. The forest is in the full, humming work of the Alabama summer.
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: June in Arizona · June in Arkansas · June in California