Buck Moon: July's full moon

Where the name Buck Moon comes from

A buck is a male deer, and July is antler season. The Old Farmer’s Almanac (New Hampshire) calls Buck Moon a Native American name noted by Captain Jonathan Carver, who traveled among Native peoples of the interior in the 1760s and wrote about them. Carver’s book is a historical record, but it is a colonial traveler’s account in English of names he heard in other languages. It does not tell us which nation used the name, or how widely.

The two almanacs also disagree slightly on what the name describes. The Old Farmer’s Almanac says bucks’ antlers are in full growth in July. The Farmers’ Almanac, a separate publication based in Maine, says this is when bucks begin growing new antlers. Both agree that the name is about antlers.

Like the other popular monthly names, Buck Moon reached most Americans through almanacs, which drew on Indigenous, colonial and European sources and matched each name to a calendar month. There was no single Native American list. Names differed by nation and dialect and often named a lunar month. Our full moon names overview has the fuller story.

Other names for July’s full moon

The Old Farmer’s Almanac attributes each of these to a nation. We give its attributions as stated, without independent confirmation.

• Thunder Moon: Western Abenaki.
• Salmon Moon: Tlingit.
• Berry Moon and Halfway Summer Moon: Anishinaabe.
• Raspberry Moon: Algonquin and Ojibwe.
• Moon When the Chokecherries Are Ripe: Dakota.
• Month of the Ripe Corn Moon: Cherokee.
• Feather Moulting Moon: Cree, when birds shed and regrow feathers.

Indian Country Today (ICT), a Native-run news outlet, gives the Ojibwe name Aabita-niibino-giizis, the Half-way through Summer Moon. It closely matches the almanac’s Halfway Summer Moon.

ICT also gives a Dakota name, Čhaŋphá šá wí, the Chokecherries Ripening Moon, which matches the almanac’s Dakota entry. The Oneida name for July translates as String Bean or Green Bean, and the Diné (Navajo) name as Big Planting.

The range of names shows how much the “same” month differs across a continent. For the Tlingit, July was about salmon. On the plains it was chokecherries, in the Southeast ripening corn, and in the north birds molting.

What makes the Buck Moon notable

July’s full moon follows June’s in riding low across the southern sky. A full moon sits opposite the Sun. With the Sun still high in midsummer, the full moon stays low and is up for a fairly short night, although it climbs a little higher than June’s.

Its glare also matters for summer stargazing. Midsummer is prime time for the Milky Way’s bright core in the south. Around the Buck Moon the sky is too bright to see it, so the dark nights to aim for are about a week to two weeks later. The late-July Delta Aquariid meteor shower is also faint and easily washed out in years when it peaks near full moon.

How to watch the Buck Moon

Check the moonrise time for your city in the table above. Look toward the southeast: in July the full moon rises well south of due east, so a low horizon in that direction matters. On muggy evenings, a hazy horizon can turn the rising Moon a deep orange or even reddish. The air near the ground scatters blue light strongly.

Expect the rising Moon to look huge. NASA explains the Moon illusion as a perception effect, not optics: photographs show no change in size between the horizon and high in the sky. Some researchers compare it to the Ponzo illusion, in which surrounding scenery changes how big we judge an object to be. One quick check, which NASA itself suggests, is to bend over and look at the Moon upside down between your legs. Many people find it suddenly looks smaller.

Summer nights are warm, so this is a good full moon for a picnic or an evening at a lakeshore. Our city sky pages show when the Moon is up and when the darker nights begin.