By GERALDINE H. DINKINS Times-News Correspondent

The staccato barrage of falling acorns has become the rhythm of nature's soundtrack anywhere within "firing distance" of a white or red oak since early September.

As trails and parking lots morph into marble runs and streets, streams and metal roofs act as amplifiers to nerve-startling torrents of acorns, longtime residents' talk has turned to predictions of a harsh winter or, at the very least, of a challenging hunting season in WNC.

Forest and wildlife officials discredit the future-telling powers of oaks, but they do agree that this fall's acorn production is well above average and will likely affect wildlife populations and hunting this fall and winter.

"It's pretty well a bumper crop and a good one even for a bumper crop year," said David Stewart, a land management biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. "Everyone is noticing it, I've heard it said in calls and seen it with my own two eyes."

Acorn bumper crops happen in three- to five-year cycles, Stewart said, based on scientific counts of marked trees's "mast fruiting" behavior a term used for hardwood trees' reproductive activities. Others who, like Stewart, spend a lot of time gazing up into forest canopies echo his opinion it's a bumper crop year all right, but it happens with some regularity. The reasons largely are not well understood.

"Mast fruiting is not happening due to any one contributing factor," said Brian Schneider, who holds a master's degree in forestry from the University of Maine and is an instructor in Haywood Community College's Forest Management Technology Program.

"We don't understand whether these oaks have some kind of sense that leads to this super-saturation of acorns," Schneider said. "What we know is that a lot of variables from weather to the overall health of the trees can produce these big acorn crops, but we don't understand it very well, because of the lag time."

In other words, while a late frost three years ago and a wet summer two years' past may contribute to an abundant acorn production, Schneider sees little evidence at least not in documented science that oak trees can predict the severity of the winter ahead and respond to it by throwing off acorns in massive numbers.

"Why we get this bumper crops every few years is largely a mystery," he said. "Personally, I don't put much stock in them being a predictor of anything."

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Acorn bumper crop turns heads in WNC