Top Photo: Ice forming on waterfall at Black Bear Enclosure.

Cold night temperatures have been freezing the water flowing over the rocks at the waterfall in the bear enclosure. The cooler air has also been making the bears increasingly drowsy, which makes seeing them more challenging to the human observer.

Our bears tend to sleep more during the colder days of the year. They don’t go into full hibernation, the temperatures don’t stay cold long enough here on the Piedmont. And, there’s plenty of food available to them throughout the year, though I’ve seen them turn up their noses at food offerings in the past, lift their heads, sniff the air, then go back to sleep.

It looks like Mimi and Little Bear are both taking frequent and lengthy naps lately. More correctly, serious sleeping. However, our most recent arrival, Murray, a two year old, can often be seen pacing in front of the main black bear overlook or around the corner at the secondary bear overlook.

Be patient, Murray seems to pop into view often enough to make things interesting.

What are the red wolves doing? As with the bears, your chances of seeing our new red wolves are greatly increased by knowing where to look. As mentioned before on this blog, Oka is likely to be seen on the far left of their enclosure, either bottom left or top left, balled up in the corner of the fence. He’s well camouflaged, as are all red wolves, so that rock you think you see at the foot of the fence just might be a wolf. Have a look.

Martha, as usual, tends to stay inside the den, though she’s not always out in front of the den’s camera. But if you’re lucky, she’ll reveal herself (Den 2, Button #4).

So, get outside. Take a hike to Explore the Wild. Have a look around. If you know where to look you’ll probably see Murray, Little (maybe), Mimi, Oka and Martha.

And if you’re really lucky, you may get to see one of our local red-shouldered hawks hunting inside the bear’s enclosure. This one caught a slow moving frog.

Ranger Greg