Bundled in the warmth of your sleeping bag as you drift into a slumber, you are startled by the coyote’s croon or the high whinny of the screech owl – animals out foraging for food and stalking their prey. Our Blue Ridge backyard is an ecosystem for a wide variety of nocturnal mammals, birds, and insects. The night life is a dynamic world in constant flux: migrating coyote populations are replacing the red wolf; bats are dying from a mysterious disease; and more mountain lion sightings suggest that large cats may still roam the mountains.
“Most mammals originated as nocturnal creatures, mainly to stay out of way of dinosaurs and reptiles,” says Doug Shedd, professor of biology at Randolph College. “Mammal species diversity exploded after the extinction of dinosaurs. But as a group, mammals still have a large number of nocturnal species. They rely on hearing and sense of smell rather than vision.”
Mammals such as skunks, foxes, coyotes and opossums, through evolution, have adapted a nocturnal nature, which is reflected in their senses, behaviors, and hunting strategies.
One of the most complex qualities nocturnal animals has is night vision. “Most mammals don’t see colors well. Most mammals don’t have good color vision or any at all. And that’s really the result of them using them for nocturnal situations,” Shedd says.
Nocturnal animals rely on rod cells, which are useful for seeing after dark, whereas cone cells—color vision—needs light and is only useful during the day. This is why humans lose much of their color vision after dark, because they rely on rod vision. Owls rely on rod vision to see well at night, allowing them to not need much light to hunt for their prey.
“All owls do have some cones in their eyes so that they can detect color to some extent, and aren’t blind in the daylight, but the rods give them their good nocturnal vision,” Shedd says.
Nocturnal animals’ schedules revolve around their role as a prey or predator, according to Shedd. They are nocturnal simply because they are out hunting for prey that is nocturnal, or they are out roaming around at night to avoid predators that are present during the daytime.
Bear The black bear is a large, powerful nocturnal animal in the Blue Ridge area. Black bears come out at night, but more late afternoon and early evening. They amble around at dusk and dawn, looking for nuts, berries, and insects, and they dig up wasp nests to feed on the larvae. They will also eat heavier meals, such as rabbits and deer fawn.
Bears are adaptable and intelligent animals that associate people with food. While camping or hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains it is possible to come face to face with a black bear. Hiking at dusk or dawn will increase your chances of running into a bear, since they are crepuscular creatures—animals mostly active around sunset and sunrise. Biologists suggest making noise while on the trail, such as talking or singing, to scare away bears and reduce your chances of surprising them on the trail. Also, be sure to either leave your dog at home or keep it on a leash to keep it from provoking a bear.
Coyote Coyotes, which have filled the role of the wolf, have been found in virtually every county in the Southern Appalachians. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries first classified coyotes as an invasive species and then redefined them as naturalized species since they have developed a stable population in the state.
“They are thriving in the area and gradually over time they sort of have taken over the role that the wolves used to fill,” says Kelly Rourke, education coordinator at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro. “So that niche of higher predator left this hole and the coyotes have been moving eastward and plugged into the hole, I guess. Its been kind of progressing for years.”
The coyote’s successful and stable emergence in the Southeast is also credited to their ability to adapt easily to new environments and the fact that they are opportunistic and vulture-like feeders, eating a diet of anything that comes their way from rodents to rabbits to animal carcasses, according to the state game department.
Coyotes are about the size of a border collie and are slim and rusty red or grey. If you hear a yapping howl in the night, that’s the coyote. They tend to like open land with some forest, according to Rourke, but they definitely like open land to hunt on because they hunt for animals like rabbits, possums and skunks.
“They tend to focus more on the smaller guys. But they’ll take advantage of anything they can. And they will eat fruits and vegetable matters,” Rourke says.
Bobcat The bobcat isn’t seen very often by people in the Blue Ridge Mountains because of its reclusive nature and fear of humans. Bobcats are the size of a beagle—weighing between 10 and 25 pounds—and have a bobbed tail, long legs and big ears. They have sideburns on their cheeks and their fur is a reddish-brown color with black spots and they have a white, spotted belly.
Despite their shyness, bobcats have big attitudes, as is the case with most cats. Rourke says they are feisty and the clinic’s crew usually has to anesthetize them when bringing them into the center. They hunt small animals, such as rodents, and will eat crippled deer during hunting season. Most hikers don’t realize bobcats are out lurking in the woods, because they are skittish and don’t want to be near people. If you come across a bobcat, it will most likely take off and hide, Rourke says.
Mountain Lion A larger, more feared wild cat, the mountain lion is presumed to be roaming the Blue Ridge range, but state and federal agencies have been reluctant to confirm their presence officially.
“I personally think there is plenty of room for them to be out there,” Rourke says. “I’ve never seen one at the center. A few people have seen footprints or heard them from their porch. It’s unclear whether mountain lions are an actual wild population or ones that had been kept as pets by someone and then released.”
For now, the mountain lion remains heresay until land managers officially recognize it as a naturalized species.
Raccoon The raccoon is another common nocturnal animal that has adapted to living in suburban and city areas, but prefers upland wooded areas, according to the game department, and can be found throughout the Blue Ridge area. The stocky creature is characterized by its black facial mask and five to seven rings on its bushy tail. Raccoons don’t necessarily hibernate but do tend to stay in their dens for longer periods of time during the winter. They may steal dens from other animals like foxes, ground hogs and opossums. Raccoons forage before midnight and feed on fruits and insects, as well as animals like frogs, turtles, mice, eggs and crawfish; and in suburban and city areas, you can usually find them dumpster diving and ripping open garbage bags for leftovers.
Opossum The opossum is one of the more recognized nocturnal rodents in the area. Opossums are nocturnal marsupials that are the size of a housecat, around nine to 13 pounds. They have short legs, hairless ears, and a prehensile tail, which they use as an extra grip to grab onto branches and drag leaves into their den for covering. Their back feet also have thumbs, which help them with climbing trees.
The opossum is Appalachia’s toothiest animal, with a smile that has more than 50 teeth. Females are pregnant for 13 days and then their babies crawl from the birth canal into the marsupial pouch, where they are weened for three to four months.
The opossum is found throughout the Southeast and lives in wooded areas near water sources. It is an adaptable animal that can live in suburban areas, but prefers forests. They are omnivores, eating fruits, plants and animal carcasses, and sometimes they will even eat their young.
Flying Squirrel Another nocturnal rodent, which isn’t seen very often, is the chipmunk-like flying squirrel, which lives throughout most of the Southeast.
“Squirrels as a group are daytime creatures, such as grey squirrels and ground hogs,” Randolph College’s Shedd says. “Flying squirrels, on the other hand, are completely nocturnal.”
They have skin in between their front and hind legs called patagia that allows them to glide long distances from tree to tree. They feed on seeds and nuts, fungi, flowers, sap, and occasionally insects, slugs, snails and even bird eggs. Flying squirrels live in small families in tree holes and nests. You almost never see them, but they can be heard with their high-pitched chirp.
Fox Going up the food chain, larger nocturnal predators like the red fox and grey fox, are about the size of a small dog weighing nine to 12 pounds, and are typically seen more frequently in the summer. The grey tends to be smaller and stealthier, finding refuge in trees for vantage points and stealing eggs. Foxes are crepuscular, generally hunt at dusk and at dawn, and in midwinter you are more likely to see them out in the daylight if they are cold and hungry, scavenging for food. They are omnivorous and eat mostly rabbits and mice, as well as other small rodents, birds, insects, nuts and fruits.
Bats Bats are the only mammal that can truly fly and Virginia has 17 of the more than 1,000 species of bats, according to the game department. Both tree bats and cave bats reside in the Blue Ridge area, with the big brown bat and little brown bat being the most common cave bats.
Bats generally don’t have much color to them. The ones with the most color are the tree bats like the red and the hoary. Silver-haired bats are more blackish with white tips on the wings that give them their silver look.
Red bats are the only bat species that we have in the East where males and females have distinct coloring. Males are Irish-setter red, while females have a grizzled look to them – white tipping on the fir that gives them a dirtier look – not clean, deep red.
Bats control the mosquito population and can eat as much as 3,000 insects per night.
Bats communicate, hunt and avoid collisions by using ultrasound, creating high-pitched sounds that reverberate off objects in their path. Their calls are too high of a frequency for humans to hear.
A fungus, known as white-nose syndrome, is killing large numbers of bats across the country.It’s found in bats during hibernation and grows on them when their body temperatures drop. It’s typically seen on the face and wings of bats, and it causes them to wake during hibernation and use up their fat reserves that they survive off during the winter. Bats with this fungus can be found flying around midwinter rather than hibernating, causing them to either freeze or starve to death.
“They are seeing a large fatality rate in the northeast and it’s spreading south. In some caves, 90 percent of the bats are dying,” Reynolds says. “It’s now spread south through Virginia and Tennessee.”
Owls Owls choose to hunt at night to avoid the threat of falling prey to other wildlife. They have excellent hearing and good eyes for the night, specializing in seeing well without much light. They also fly very quietly, flapping their nearly silent wings, so that they can hear mice and other rodents scurrying around below.
“Their face has round rough patches on each side around the ears to pick up incoming sound,” Randolph College’s Shedd says. “The ears are on the side of the head and are asymmetric. The ear on one side is up farther than on the other side and it helps them isolate sounds. By having one ear higher than the other, the sound below them is going to be heard on a vertical and horizontal plane and isolated.”
This allows owls to hunt in complete darkness, just using their ears for direction.
Owls also have wing feathers that have a soft layer so that they don’t make noise. “Owls fly almost entirely silent so that the prey won’t hear the owl coming,” Shedd says, “but it’s more important to fly silently so sound of flight doesn’t interfere with their own hearing.”
Owls have a cryptic coloring, which means they appear hidden or camouflaged. They are brown and grey and very inconspicuous colors, according to Shedd, because they are spending the daytime sleeping and hiding for predators that don’t want them around.
“Other birds will mob owls and will be pesky and annoying. If crows find them, they will mob them and chase them and try and drive them away,” Shedd says. “It’s not just an annoyance for the owl, but becomes energetically expensive to find a new location.”
The Southeast has a hearty population and diversity of owls: the great horned, the barred owl and the screech owl are the most common. The barn owl is less common, and typically nests in barns. Even more rare are the short-eared and long-eared owls—and the saw-whet owl, a teeny tiny owl that migrates through the state coming from farther north.
Other winged creatures of the night Other than owls, there are a few other nocturnal flying predators, such as the whip-poor-will, nighthawk and chuck-will’s-widow. These birds have big mouths allowing them to scoop up insects while in flight.
You can see the nighthawk around sunset flying overhead. They look vaguely hawk-like with a 9.5-inch body and 2-foot wingspan. Up close, you can see their cryptic coloring, which is much like the owls’.
“The nighthawk was very common in the Southeast at one point, but has declined dramatically recently,” Shedd says. “Lots of insectivoress birds are declining and it’s not quite clear why.”
Although not frequently seen, the whip-poor-will is recognizable by its distinct call that sounds just like its name “whip-poor-will.” They spend most of their time on the ground and fly only when feeding on moths and mosquitoes. Their size is comparable to the nighthawk.
The chuck-will’s-widow, a foot-long nocturnal bird is also named for call. It has cryptic coloration, like owls, and spends its time on the ground feeding on insects.
