The fall and winter seasons are a great time to get outdoors and enjoy the changes going on in nature.

Many creatures such as the squirrel scamper about during the fall, building stockpiles of nuts and seeds to feed on while food is scarce. They’re excellent at raiding bird feeders, which while costly is at least entertaining.

The Carolina northern flying squirrel is unique to the area. In the winter, Carolina northern flying squirrels usually nest or den in tree cavities of northern hardwood trees like yellow birch. In the summer, they will sometimes build leaf nests in the foliage of conifers like red spruce, fraser fir, or hemlock. Note that flying squirrels do not truly fly; they glide by out-stretching large folds of skin attached to their sides between their front and hind feet.

The squirrels live near the boundary of high elevation conifer and northern hardwood forest. However, high elevation fir forests have been heavily impacted by the balsam wooly adelgid, an exotic insect that kills adult fir trees. Consequently, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service listed the Carolina northern flying squirrel on the federal Endangered Species List in 1985 to help protect the small pockets of habitat that remain suitable for nesting and foraging.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s Wildlife Diversity Program works to conserve wildlife and their habitats across the state. Donations to the Non-game and Endangered Wildlife Fund help animals like the Carolina northern flying squirrel and raptors such as the peregrine falcon and bald eagle, which have been successfully reintroduced in North Carolina thanks in part to such funding.

All across WNC you’ll see images of the black bear — on license plates, on coffee mugs, carved out of tree trunks, holding fishing rods with trout at the end, on t-shirts... However, for all the bear’s popularity it really is a shy and reclusive animal. Generally they avoid people, save for those that have grown used to pilfering garbage cans for food. Feeding bears “people food” is a not a good idea to say the least. Bears, no matter how curious and charming, are dangerous. Moreover, people can be dangerous for them. Fed bears will tend to abandon their natural food sources and may stay closer to human activity looking for handouts, increasing the possibility for unwanted interaction. A wild bear is a good bear.

In fall and early winter, bears especially seek out acorns and other nuts in order to build up fat reserves to insulate against the cold. In our area, black bears don’t hibernate but may be dormant during the coldest part of the winter. Unlike true hibernators, a dormant black bear can become fully alert in minutes if it is disturbed. Winter dens include hollow trees, cavities formed in the ground, or sometimes simply a bed on the surface of the ground in a thicket.

Females give birth to their cubs during the winter in late January or early February. Average litter sizes are from two to three young. The young bears stay with the mother through the next winter and disperse the following spring. The black bear population has exploded, with Wildlife Commission officials estimating that there are more black bears now than at any time in history. Last year, officials opened up lands to hunting that were previously sanctuaries due to a high number of negative bear-human interactions. It’s something to keep in mind for two reasons — there’s a lot of bear to keep an eye out for, and the fall and winter are hunting season for a variety of animals including bear, deer, wild boar, raccoon and opossum, fox, squirrel, rabbit, quail and pheasant. Bright clothing is never a bad idea while out hiking, as it helps humans see and be seen by one another.