Nature Moncton Nature News: May 11 2015

** Louise Nichols got some awesome photos of a very cooperative GLOSSY IBIS [Ibis falcinelle] at the Sackville Waterfowl Park on Sunday. She heard about it being there and searched unsuccessfully on Saturday evening, but re-checking on Sunday morning, saw it fly in. It moved to a different area, feeding and coming incredibly close to the boardwalk for fantastic observations. There is a surprising number of Glossy Ibises in the Maritimes at the moment. Last week, there were 8, in company with a WHITE-FACED IBIS [Ibis à face blanche], not far from Pictou, N.S. It was a year ago today that two were at the Lars Larsen Marsh in Harvey.

Louise also mentions that a EURASIAN WIGEON [Canard siffleur] was spotted at the Sackville Waterfowl Park on Sunday.

** Kevin Renton and John Massey were rockhounding in the Five Islands area of Nova Scotia, on Diamond Island, on Sunday and were dive-bombed by two PEREGRINE FALCONS [Faucon pèlerin] that were not particularly impressed by their presence around a cliff there. They assume there is a nest in that area.

** Doreen Rossiter’s new arrivals on Sunday at her Alma feeder yard were a BALTIMORE ORIOLE [Oriole de Baltimore] and several RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRDS [Colibri à gorge rubis]. I was not going to mention hummingbird arrivals, as it seemed to be in full progress. However, Sunday did produce several mass arrivals compared to the many individual arrivals of previous days. Dave Christie had at least five, three males and 2 females, at Mary's Point on Sunday evening, and there could have been more but it was hard to track their fast, combative aerial behaviour. John Oldham also had a male arrive on Saturday at his Moncton feeder yard.

** Dave Christie’s YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER [Paruline à gorge jaune] is proving to be an elusive bird, but was still present on Sunday. He spotted it briefly in the morning at his Mary's Point home and got some photos through a window of it perched on an eaves trough, but when he carefully went outside. it was nowhere to be found, then or later in the day, when it seems to have melted into the vegetation. Dave says that activity around his home was generally slow on Sunday with YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS [Paruline à croupion jaune] down to three. However, the brief visit of the Yellow-throated Warbler and a male ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK [Cardinal à poitrine rose] saved the day.

** Linda Banks was in Fredericton on Sunday and spotted OSTRICH FERN [Matteuccie fougère-à-l'autruche] fiddleheads emerging from the ground at a home, that turned out to be the house that poet Bliss Carman had lived in. [Transcriber’s note: Appropriately, the poetry journal published by the Bliss Carman Society is called “The Fiddlehead.”] Linda also says that SPRING PEEPERS [Rainette crucifère] are in full chorus behind John’s Garden Centre on the Hillsborough Road in Riverview.

** A few days ago, Anna Tucker reported on a mass of blue flowers growing on the bank of Jones Lake, off Hillcrest Drive [Moncton]. They are an escapee cultivar “GLORY-OF-THE-SNOW” [chionodo] (Chionodoxa) that burst out in the spring. Anne Marsch identified them, noting that they will grow anywhere. They surely add a colourful touch to that brown hillside, with no other foliage out yet.

<nelson@nb.sympatico.ca>

Nelson Poirier,

Nature Moncton