Nature Moncton Nature News: Aug 16 2016

** Susan and Fred Richards had an accipiter hawk chasing Blue Jays around their Memramcook yard recently. Fred was able to get a quick photo that suggests it to be a first year SHARP-SHINNED HAWK [Épervier brun]. Any other comments would be appreciated.

** Jamie and Karen Burris went for a walk off the Dawson Settlement Rd. on Monday to find their first fresh LOBSTER MUSHROOMS of the season. Jamie comments that they enjoy Lobster Mushrooms in seafood chowder. The Lobster Mushroom comes into being when a certain fungus invades another fungi, usually Russula brevipes, the short-stalked Russula, to take on the red-orange coloration which it does underground and is red-orange as it emerges from the ground.

They also got a close up photo of a GARTER SNAKE [Couleuvre rayée ] to nicely show the forked tongue it uses to smell its surroundings. Jamie also got a photo of a SHADOW DARNER dragonfly.

** Brian Stone got some nice photos of a CLOUDED SULPHUR BUTTERFLY [Coliade du trèfle] and a RED ADMIRAL BUTTERFLY [Vulcain] ... and after many attempts was able to get a quick photo of a GIANT SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY [Grand porte-queue] that he has seen often, but had been eluding him on his visit to Perth, Ontario. We had two reports of this butterfly in New Brunswick a few years ago. It is a huge butterfly.

** Fred Schueler shares a very interesting comment on the brown Northern Leopard Frog that Brian got a photo of in Perth, Ontario. Fred comments, and I am quoting ... " The brown morph is quite common in eastern Ontario Leopard Frogs, about 20% of the population. It's a simple mendelian recessive gene, but it is absent, or nearly absent, in northern Ontario and Quebec and eastern Maritime populations" ... end quote. I personally have seen only one brown Northern Leopard Frog in the Maritimes which happened to be in the Milford area of Nova Scotia.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca