Nature Moncton Nature News: July 1 2015

** Don and Dorcia Pellerin found an immature SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER at the west end of the Bouctouche lagoon on Tuesday morning just beside Louis-Emile Cormier's earthen mound. They got the word out quickly and many were able to get to see and enjoy the bird as it actively did its fly catching to admiring eyes. Lots of photos but at an appropriate distance which the bird seemed to pay no attention to. The bird stayed all day and into the evening.

** David Miller found a REDHEAD duck in the lagoons at Salisbury at the end of Government Road just behind the trailer park and shares a nice photo.

** Aldo Dorio got photos of a VICEROY butterfly, a HUMMINGBIRD CLEARWING moth, and another SHORT-TAILED SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY at Hay Island Park on Tuesday.

** Marlene Hickman reports COMMON GRACKLES are very busy feeding youngsters from the suet feeder. An adult picks off pieces and drops them into a circle of waiting beaks on the ground. Marlene also comments that the LOON that seems to be staying in the wetland park behind the Tantramar High school, that can be seen from the Trans Canada Highway, is still present.

** Bob Blake keeps a record of daily morning low temperatures, daily highs and precipitation from his Second North River home and leaves a comparison between June 2014 and June 2015. There were nine mornings recorded at 10°C or below for the low for June of 2014 with a low morning of 4°C. There were 12 mornings recorded at 10°C or below for June of 2015 with a low morning of 2°C. There were 17 mornings recorded above 10°C for June of 2014 and the high morning was 16°C. There were 9 mornings recorded at below 10° for June 2015 and the high morning was 16°C. One noticeable difference was the daily highs being much higher for 2014 than 2015. There were 8 days with high temperatures of 30°+ in June of 2014 with 2 of those at 36 and 1 at 35. There were no days that were higher than 30 in June 2015 and highest was 28 and 29. Rainfall for June of 2014 was 153mm, rainfall for June 2015 was 203mm. Summation note is that more rainfall in June 2015 and lower daytime highs for June of 2015 than June 2014.

** Brian Stone and I paid a visit to the PEREGRINE FALCON nest box on the summit of Assumption Place (from 20 floors down in the parking lot) on Tuesday morning following Georges Brun's report of earlier Tuesday morning. Georges's photo seemed to show an adult. We saw a young bird perched on the railing of the nest box and two birds were flying in the air around the box and going in and out that appeared to us to be one of the juvenile birds we were able to photograph and suspected both of the birds we saw while we were there were juveniles, possibly on an inaugural flights.

Brian also got some nice images of an EASTERN KINGBIRD, SAVANNAH SPARROW and GRAY CATBIRD on travels on Tuesday.