Nature Moncton Nature News: Jan 9 2016

**Jules Cormier enjoyed an excellent day spotting birds in the Memramcook area on Friday. He had 2 HAIRY WOODPECKERS [Pic chevelu], 2 DOWNY WOODPECKERS [Pic mineur], 1 NORTHERN FLICKER [Pic flamboyant], and a RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER [Pic à ventre roux] arrive to his feeder yard. There is a strong possibility this may be the same Red-bellied Woodpecker Yolande LeBlanc has had coming regularly to her Memramcook yard, so they will watch to determine if that be the case or not. Travelling the Taylor Village Road, Jules was able to re-locate the LARK SPARROW [Bruant à joues marron] Alain Clavette had found on Memramcook Christmas Bird Count day. He found it near where Alain located it, at 1261 Taylor Village Road. It was at roadside when he saw it, and it lifted to a nearby tree. Even more AMERICAN ROBINS [Merle d'Amérique] are in the area, seeing many in the Taylor Village Road area. Also seeing a group of PINE GROSBEAKS [Durbec des sapins] and a flock of 50 BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS [Jaseur boreal].

**John Inman reported to Dave Christie about a melanistic AMERICAN GOLDFINCH [Chardonneret jaune] he was seeing intermittently at his 225 Mary’s Point Road feeder yard. It has very dark tones, to have little similarity in plumage to a Goldfinch, with a lot of black markings and some rufous tones where white is expected. Dave had thought he may have spotted a dark bird at his own feeder over the past week a few times, but woke up on Saturday morning to find the melanistic Goldfinch at his own feeder. It was just after dawn, and a photo was not possible, but hopefully a photo can be captured to share this unusually-marked Finch soon. Dave comments it has similarities to one Bev Christie had visiting her feeder near Moncton in the winter of 2009-2010.

**Clarence Cormier reports on the second day of having his feeder set up at his Grande Digue site. A dozen AMERICAN GOLDFINCH [Chardonneret jaune] arrived, and a NORTHERN SHRIKE [Pie-grièche grise] to check on the activity. Clarence is noting more AMERICAN ROBINS [Merle d'Amérique] in that area, seeing approximately 50 on Friday. The same CEDAR WAXWINGS [Jaseur d'Amérique] appeared for a brief stop. Clarence comments that he had entered the presence of Cedar Waxwings in his journal around his place on January 8^th of 2012, to suggest maybe Cedar Waxwings at this site in January may not be unusual.

**Brian Stone was able to capture some sky events on Friday morning. He got the planets VENUS and SATURN near their closest approach of the morning. On Saturday morning they were even closer together but an overcast sky in this area shut that out. In a wide-angle photo, the bright star ANTARES is also visible in the lower right hand corner. The slim crescent MOON also made an appearance, rising above the horizon just before the SUN on Friday morning for Brian.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton