Hunter's Moon: the full moon after the Harvest Moon

The Hunter’s Moon rule

The Hunter’s Moon follows a rule, but the rule depends on another moon. The Farmers’ Almanac, based in Maine, defines it as the first full moon after the Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon is the full moon nearest the September equinox. The Old Farmer’s Almanac, a separate publication based in New Hampshire, simply lists Hunter’s Moon as October’s name.

The two approaches agree in most years. They differ when the Harvest Moon itself falls in early October. Under the Farmers’ Almanac rule, the Hunter’s Moon then moves to November, the month usually given to the Beaver Moon. The dates above show which full moon is the Hunter’s Moon in each year.

Where the name comes from

Hunter’s Moon is an English name. The Farmers’ Almanac says the name has been in use since colonial times. It describes autumn fields cleared after the harvest, along with bright moonlight early in the evening. Together these made game easier to spot. The Old Farmer’s Almanac gives a related reason: game animals are fattening up for winter, and it was the time to hunt and lay in provisions for the long months ahead.

Neither almanac presents it as a Native American name. The common list of monthly full moon names mixes English and colonial names like this one with names that almanacs attributed to Indigenous nations. There was never one shared Native American list. See the full moon names overview for the background.

Other names for this full moon

The Old Farmer’s Almanac gives these October names with the nations it credits. We repeat its attributions without independent confirmation.

• Drying Rice Moon: Dakota.
• Falling Leaves Moon: Anishinaabe.
• Freezing Moon: Ojibwe.
• Ice Moon: Haida.
• Migrating Moon: Cree.

Indian Country Today (ICT), a Native-run news outlet, gives the Ojibwe name Binaakwii-giizis, the Falling Leaves Moon. Note that the almanac attributes Falling Leaves Moon to the Anishinaabe and Freezing Moon to the Ojibwe. The Ojibwe are one of the Anishinaabe peoples, and names shift between dialects and communities. A one-name-per-nation table always simplifies things.

Other nations in ICT’s article name October for leaves and storing food. The Dakota name, Čhaŋwápa kasná wí, means Leaves Shaking Off the Trees Moon, which differs from the almanac’s Dakota entry (Drying Rice Moon). The Oneida name translates as “Someone Stores Food,” which is close in spirit to the Hunter’s Moon itself.

What makes the Hunter’s Moon notable

The Hunter’s Moon shares some of the Harvest Moon’s best-known trait. On average, NASA says, the Moon rises about 50 minutes later each day. Around the autumn full moons, the Moon’s path meets the evening horizon at a shallow angle. Each day, the Moon moves more sideways and northward along the horizon than down below it, so the delay between moonrises is much shorter. EarthSky’s explanation covers both autumn full moons. The effect is usually a little weaker for the Hunter’s Moon than for the Harvest Moon, because it falls further from the equinox. The Harvest Moon page explains the geometry in detail.

In practice, this gives several evenings in a row when a bright, nearly full Moon comes up in the east not long after sunset. That early-evening light is what the name refers to.

How to watch the Hunter’s Moon

The table above shows moonrise for major cities on the best evening. Get a clear view of the eastern horizon a few minutes before that time. Then come back on the next evening or two, and you will see the Moon rise only a little later each night.

As it clears the trees, the Moon will look huge and orange. NASA explains the orange as moonlight passing through a long path of air, which scatters the blue. The large size is the Moon illusion. Photographs show the Moon has the same width low and high, and the effect is in how we perceive size against a landscape. Looking at the Moon through a paper tube is a quick way to make the illusion disappear.

Autumn evenings turn cold quickly, so bring a jacket. In years when the Orionid meteor shower peaks near the Hunter’s Moon, the meteors are best before dawn, when a bright Moon near full is still up. Face away from the Moon, or put a building between you and it, to see more of the bright meteors.