Nature Moncton Nature News: December 19 2014

Friday morning, December 19, 2014

** Bob Surette has a partial albino/leucistic EUROPEAN STARLING [Étourneau sansonnet] visiting his Scoudouc feeder yard this week. These albinistic birds are all so unique -- only one copy is ever created. A photo is attached. #

** Mike Plourde has been having a male EASTERN TOWHEE [Tohi à flancs roux] visiting his 64 Martin St. yard in Moncton for some time now, but it has become more regular in recent days and shy as this species often is. Mike got a beautiful photo with his trail camera which is attached. The model of camera Mike uses is the Bushnell Trophy and he gets many interesting photos in darkness and in daylight. #

** Dave Christie had an unexpected scenario with a SHARP-SHINNED HAWK [Épervier brun] on Thursday when one arrived and perched in very open exposure on top of the feeder hangers for at least an hour. During that time, it sometimes fluffed up its body feathers and spread its tail, a puzzling reaction from a bird on the hunt. The feeder patrons very much recognized the threat and stayed away except for two bold BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES [Mésange à tête noire] that made quick visits to a feeder 30 ft. away.

We are experimenting with ways to share message and photos more widely without need for passwords or membership. This is very much in its trial stages. Test it out by going to the link http://nminfoline.blogspot.ca/. This will give the message and photos at low resolution. If you wish to see the photos at high resolution, click on the Nature Moncton Photo bucket option which will take you to the higher resolution photos of that day. In each of these sites, the message and/or photos are listed by date of send out. Play with it for now and there will no doubt be changes. Thanks again to Katherin Atkinson.

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton