Nature Moncton Nature News

Saturday, 5 July 2025

July 5 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

July 5, 2025

Nature Moncton members, as well as any naturalist in New Brunswick or beyond, are invited to share their photos and descriptions of recent nature sightings to build a fresh (almost) daily edition of Nature News.

To respond by e-mail, please address your message to the information line editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com.

Please advise the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com and the proofreader Louise Nichols at Nicholsl@eastlink.ca if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling.

For more information on Nature Moncton, check the website at www.naturemoncton.com

Proofreading courtesy of Louise Nichols nicholsl@eastlink.ca

**A reminder of an interesting event on tomorrow, Sunday. Tweedie Road is directly off Route 11.

**A reminder that the NB Museum is currently holding its 2025 Biota at Black River Protected Natural Area in the Kouchibouguac Village area. Open House this Sunday!

Here is a link to their web page: New Brunswick Museum Leads 14th Annual Biota into Black River PNA - NBM-MNB

“A highlight of the project is a public open house on Sunday, July 6, from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m., at the Biota Field Lab (Pentecostal Church, 194 Tweedie Brook Road, Kent Rural District). Visitors are invited to meet the scientists, students, and artists behind the project and explore their discoveries firsthand."

**Louise Nichols photographed a worn gallium sphinx moth, a.k.a. bedstraw hawk-moth, at her Aulac home on Friday evening.

(Editor’s note: this is a very beautiful larger moth when fresh; however, it is not often seen as it is not attracted to lights. What we often see more of is its very colourful caterpillar roaming about in late summer, especially near bedstraw, its commonly found host plant.)

**Jane LeBlanc was thrilled to find two tiny monarch butterfly caterpillars on one of her milkweed plants on Friday. One was no bigger than the tip of her baby finger, with the other being less than an inch long.

(Editor’s note: July 4 is an early date to be finding hatched monarch butterfly caterpillars and these are possibly two of the earlier ones of the province to be reported.)

Nelson Poirier had a monarch butterfly visit common milkweed at his Miramichi camp on Friday afternoon. It circled the yard, then settled down on a milkweed leaf and left without a photographic opportunity. Hopefully, it returns to peruse the abundance of available milkweed.

**A mere month ago, we saw lots of red-berried elder shrubs in prime bloom, but now we are seeing an abundance of its kin, common elderberry in prime bloom. The blooms look similar at a distance, but the bloom of red-berried elder is definitely cone-shaped, whereas the bloom of common elderberry is much flatter. The berry cluster of red-berried elder will sport red berries, while the common elder berry clusters will be dark blue.

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier.

Nature Moncton

MONARCH BUTTERFLY CATERPILLARS. JULY 4, 2025. JANE LeBLANC

MONARCH BUTTERFLY CATERPILLAR. JULY 4, 2025. JANE LeBLANC

GALLIUM SPHINX MOTH AKA BEDSTRAW HAWK-MOTH. JULY 4, 2025. LOUISE NICHOLS

COMMON ELDERBERRY. JULY 4, 2025. NELSON POIRIER

Friday, 4 July 2025

July 4 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

July 4, 2025

To respond by e-mail, please address your message to the information line editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com .

Please advise the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com and the proofreader Louise Nichols at Nicholsl@eastlink.ca if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling.

For more information on Nature Moncton, check the website at www.naturemoncton.com

Proofreading courtesy of Nichols nicholsl@eastlink.ca

**Aldo Dorio found a pair of willet with two fledgling chicks at the marsh/shoreline of the Malpec Rd. near Neguac on Thursday and was able to get documentary photos.

**Shannon Inman checked some of the fields around their Harvey home to get an open spread-wing photo of a fresh white admiral butterfly, a male belted whiteface dragonfly, bird’s-foot trefoil, and a clump of wild roses that caught her eye.

**The big, beautiful giant silkworm moths, such as the luna moth, are still on their adult mating mission. Nelson Poirier has had several luna moths drop by his moth light, one showing signs of wear. Note the ‘sleepy eye spots’ on the hind wing in Nelson's photos (arrowed)!

Nelson’s open-book style mason bee hotel is now showing that some of the eggs have hatched into larvae and are consuming the pollen stash left by the parent in the mud nests.

**This Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2025 July 05 – Ju1y 12
The dome of the night sky appears to be two dimensional, which led the ancients to propose that the stars were embedded on a crystal sphere beyond the wanderers of the Sun, Moon and five planets. We now know that the stars are much farther than the planets, but how much farther? Neptune is the most distant planet from the Sun, about three times farther than Saturn and 30 times farther than Earth. Sunlight takes 4.2 hours to reach Neptune but 4.2 years to reach the closest star, Proxima Centauri. The nearest star we can see easily from New Brunswick is Sirius at 8.6 light years.

Although the constellations appear to be distinct figures of related stars, often those stars are at vastly different distances. Rasalhague, the brightest star of Ophiuchus and which marks his head, is 49 light years away, while the one at his waist is about ten times farther. Rasalhague is closer to us than it is to some of the other stars that form the constellation. The constellation shapes are a matter of perspective but they will look the same from Neptune as they do from Earth.

Near Antares in Scorpius is the globular cluster M4, one of the nearest such clusters at 7000 light years. M13 in Hercules is more than three times distant, and M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is about one hundred times farther than M13. The most distant object accessible by a medium-size backyard telescope is the quasar (an extremely luminous active galaxy) 3C 273 in Virgo, which is a thousand times farther than M31. And sometimes in Saint John I can barely see across the street.

This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 5:34 and sunset will occur at 9:12, giving 15 hours, 38 minutes of daylight (5:43 and 9:14 in Saint John). Next Saturday the Sun will rise at 5:40 and set at 9:08, giving 15 hours, 28 minutes of daylight (5:48 and 9:10 in Saint John).

The Moon is near Antares in Scorpius on Monday morning and it is full on Thursday. Mercury sets 80 minutes after sunset this weekend and one hour after sunset next weekend. Mars is now setting before midnight and it is starting to creep sunward. Saturn rises around 12:30 am this week with Neptune being just above it. On Sunday morning Uranus will be half a binocular field above Venus but try to see it well before 5:00 to avoid bright twilight. Jupiter is in the morning sky, visible in twilight next weekend when it rises an hour before the Sun.

The Saint John Astronomy Club meets in the Rockwood Park Interpretation Centre this Saturday at 7 pm.

Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier.

Nature Moncton

WILLET. JULY 3, 2025. ALDO DORIO

WILLET FLEDGLING. JULY 3, 2025. ALDO DORIO

WHITE ADMIRAL BUTTERFLY. JULY 3, 2025. SHANNON INMAN

LUNA MOTH (SHOWING SLEEPY EYES). JULY 2, 2025. NELSON POIRIER

BELTED WHITEFACE DRAGONFLY (MALE). JULY 3, 2025. SHANNON INMAN

MASON BEE LARVAE. JULY 1, 2025. NELSON POIRIER

MASON BEE NEST HOTEL. JULY 1, 2025. NELSON POIRIER

ROSE. JULY 3, 2025. SHANNON INMAN

BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL. JULY 3, 2025. SHANNON INMAN

Star Distance

Thursday, 3 July 2025

July 3 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

July 3, 2025

To respond by e-mail, please address your message to the information line editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com .

Please advise the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com and the proofreader Louise Nichols at Nicholsl@eastlink.ca if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling.

For more information on Nature Moncton, check the website at www.naturemoncton.com

Proofreading courtesy of Nichols nicholsl@eastlink.ca

**After seeing Brian Stone’s post on the brown bullhead at Highland Park, Yvette Richard gave it a check on Wednesday. She was lucky enough to get some action right at her feet on the boardwalk.

The water was quite brackish and had numerous small pieces of flotsam, but Yvette managed to capture some great photos.

It was interesting to watch the parent (s) corral the little ones. There were hundreds of fingerlings for sure. Yvette commented that it was an unusual occurrence, and she was glad she saw it.

The baby eastern kingbirds were lively, even in the extreme heat in Salisbury on Wednesday.

**Louise Nichols was walking a trail Wednesday morning in the Walker Rd area of Sackville, listening to a hermit thrush on one side of the trail and a Swainson's thrush on the other. She suddenly heard a commotion and saw a couple of Canada jays fly in, which were being chased by an upset blue-headed vireo. The jays turned out to be juvenile birds, and one posed for a couple of photos.

(Editor’s note: We surely don’t get many photos of juvenile Canada jays. The juveniles retain the dark smoky plumage, taking on the adult plumage in July-August.)

**Deanna Fenwick paid her first visit to Highland Park on Wednesday and found it was a great place to bird. Deanna was pleased to see a male ruddy duck and a female wood duck with her family on a nest. The male wood duck was in eclipse plumage in the area.

Deanna’s camera also caught a cedar waxwing, a warbling vireo, an eastern kingbird, and a male yellow warbler.

Deanna heard sora but didn't see one.

**Shannon Inman advises that while crossing the Gunningsville bridge on the Moncton side in the marshy area on Wednesday, she noticed a reddish coloured heron or bird, but due to all the traffic, she could not stop for a better look. Birders in the area could keep an eye out.

**Brian Stone sends photos from Nature Moncton's Wednesday Night Walk at Wilson Marsh on the Salisbury Rd. The group's first target was the tree swallow nest, in a real tree! The young chicks were poking out of the nest hole with mouths open in anticipation of food being delivered. While they were observing this wonder of nature, two other swallow nests were observed in other dead tree cavities nearby.

Another target was a group of pied-billed grebe chicks that were found again at the same location where they were noted earlier. Yellow warblers and common yellowthroats were abundant, as were the expected red-winged blackbirds and common grackles. A distant American bittern gave a fly by to the delight of the walkers, and many Canada geese were grouped together along with a few older goslings. A first-quarter (waxing) Moon hovered in the sky above as the group prepared to leave the site.

**The New Brunswick Environmental Network lists events at the beginning of each month that they know are taking place

Click on any event to view its details.

Upcoming Events for the Month of July