November: Beaver Moon
The Full Moon in November is named after beavers who build their winter dams at this time of year. It is also called Frost Moon and Mourning Moon, depending on the winter solstice.
The North American beaver has named the November Full Moon.
©iStockphoto.com/SylvieBouchard
November 2021 Lunar Eclipse
On Nov 18-19, 2021 there will be an “almost” total lunar eclipse of the Micro Beaver Full Moon. Watch it LIVE!
This eclipse is part of an “almost tetrad”—a series of four big lunar eclipses in two years. Three of these eclipses are total, while the November 18-19, 2021, is a deep partial eclipse. So deep that it is almost a total eclipse.
Tracking Seasons
In ancient times, it was common to track the changing seasons by following the lunar month rather than the solar year, which the 12 months in our modern calendar are based on.
When are the Full Moons this year?
For millennia, people across Europe, as well as Native American tribes, named the months after features they associated with the Northern Hemisphere seasons, and many of these names are very similar or identical.
Full Moon Names
Today, we use many of these ancient month names as Full Moon names. A common explanation is that Colonial Americans adopted many of the Native American names and incorporated them into the modern calendar.
However, it seems that it is a combination of Native American, Anglo-Saxon, and Germanic month names which gave birth to the names commonly used for the Full Moon today.
Some years have 13 Full Moons, which makes one of them a Blue Moon, as it doesn't quite fit in with the traditional Full Moon naming system. However, this is not the only definition of a Blue Moon.
Busy Beavers in the Moonlight
According to some sources, the Full Moon for November is named after beavers because this is the time they become particularly active building their winter dams in preparation for the cold season. The beaver is mainly nocturnal, so they keep working under the light of the Full Moon.
Beavers make dams of wood and mud. In the middle, they build dome-shaped homes called lodges with underwater entrances. Beavers continue to grow throughout their lives, and so do their teeth. They constantly gnaw on wood, but because the enamel in a beaver's incisors contains iron, their front teeth never wear down.
There used to be more than 60 million North American beavers. However, because people have hunted them for fur and their glands for medicine, among other reasons, the beaver population has declined to around 12 million.
Frost or Mourning Moon
Other names for the November Full Moon are Frost Moon, Trading Moon, and Snow Moon, although the latter is more common for the February Full Moon, while Oak Moon can be either the Full Moon in November or December, depending on which source you use.
Traditionally, the last Full Moon before the winter solstice has also been named Mourning Moon. The astronomical seasons do not match up with the lunar months. Therefore, the month of the Mourning Moon varies. Some years, the Mourning Moon is in November, while other years, it is in December.