Nature Moncton Nature News: Oct 7 2015

**Roger Leblanc became alerted to quite a concert in progress in the calmness of Tuesday evening at midnight around his Notre Dame home. A juvenile GREAT HORNED OWL was emitting its screeching call to parents as two adult GREAT HORNED OWLS did a 360 circle around its home seemingly discussing the situation of their loud teenager.

**Rosemary Macaulay found a dead RUFFED GROUSE in her Moncton yard on Monday. It appeared to be a building or a window strike. It would seem to be an unexpected spot to find a grouse with no close wooded area.

** Nature Conservancy Canada will be hosting a bird survey in their lands at Baie Verte from 1:00-4:00 on the afternoon of October 17th. This a very interesting area for birding in the fall. This is an annual event several Nature Moncton members attended last year enjoying the day very much. A URL is attached describing the event which the Nature Moncton field trip committee is deeming as a field trip for Nature Moncton to join that group. A signup on the attached form if you know you are able to attend and more details will be on the Nature Line near the date.

http://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/what-you-can-do/conservation-volunteers/events/baie-verte-waterfowl-survey.html

**Brian Stone shares more photos from wonderings in Perth, Ontario with items equally at home in NB to include: LEOPORD FROG, BULLFROG, MEADOWHAWK DRAGONFLY, immature fall WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS, a lot of YELLOW RUMPED WARBLERS in fall and immature plumage being noted and a CELLAR SPIDER. This spider also gets the common name of DADDY LONG LEGS but it is a different species from the HARVESTMAN that also gets the DADDY LONG LEGS handle but the HARVESTMAN is not a spider.

Brian also got photos of SWAMP SPARROWS that were more of a challenge to identify on the photos. The flared black eye line, bold rufus area of the wing, a gray supercilium area and white throat patch would seem to be present. There seems to be more yellow in the facial area than expected but SAVANNAH SPARROW does not seem to fit. Other comments are welcome.

**I dropped by Tri Province Enterprises location on Tomb St. in Moncton after Bruce Nowlan's call yesterday to be sure it was a budgie they were seeing. I found it there and very much acting like a wild bird. This parakeet is a seed eater and was foraging on wild seeds roadside. It flew about to different trees in the area and was vocalizing. The vocalizing could sure get a birder in a tizzy if one didn't know what was making the calls. They said the bird had been in the area for several weeks and said that they had often seen it perched in the scrapyard on metal objects similar in color to the bird. It seems to be developing some streets smarts but the winter weather could do in this bird.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton