Nature Moncton Nature News: December 21 2014

** On Friday, Marie Rees captured a nice photo# of a BOBCAT [Lynx roux] sitting on the deck of their home off the Salisbury Road, not far from Moncton and overlooking the Petitcodiac River. They had seen this animal four times over the past week but not in recent days. I assume this would be a young-of-the-year animal, as the mother Bobcats have had their young with them since spring and are now advising them to head out on their own. We are more apt to see these hungry teenagers around homes looking for food.

Anne Marsch got a beautiful photo of a House Finch foraging on Multiflora Rose hips. Would be interesting to know if this finch was after the seeds or the whole berry. Photo is atached.

** Roger LeBlanc leaves a few highlights from Saturday’s Moncton CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT. Before feeder reports come in there were 52 species, which will probably increase a bit. The weather was mild and there was a nice turnout of participants.

There were five bird species tallied that had been counted less than five times over the history of the 60-year count. These were 4 RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS [Harle huppé],2 MARSH WRENS [Troglodyte des marais], a LARK SPARROW [Bruant à joues marron], a very special species, a CLAY-COLORED SPARROW [Bruant des plaines] and the EASTERN TOWHEE [Tohi à flancs roux] that Mike Plourde has been hosting. The Clay-coloured Sparrow was found with AMERICAN TREE SPARROWS [Bruant hudsonien] in Dieppe, and the Lark Sparrow is attending a feeder in Riverview, exact location not available.

Dave Christie, Ralph White and John Oldham came across approximately 2000 birds gathered in a field west of The Journey Church at Allison on the Salisbury Road. The flock consisted of about 60% AMERICAN CROWS [Corneille d’Amérique], with the remaining birds predominantly MALLARDS [Canard colvert], and some AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS [Canard noir]. Some BALD EAGLES [Pygargue à tête blanche] put the flock up and down a few times. After 4 p.m. the flock began lifting, with the Crows heading north presumably to a night roost, and the MALLARDS [Canard colvert] heading downriver towards Moncton.

The Christmas Bird Count is a special time, with a lot of eyes looking for birds in a concentrated area, so I expect that a lot more interesting items will be available over the next few days.

We are experimenting with ways to share this 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.

I am not sure why Marie Ress photo of the Bobcat went in on its side.

Nelson Poirier,

Nature Moncton=