Nature Moncton Nature News: Dec 19 2017

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, December 19, 2017 ( Tuesday )

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Edited by: Nelson Poirier nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Transcript by: Brian Stone bjpstone@gmail.com

Info Line # 506-384-6397 (384-NEWS)

** Peter Gadd reports that the MISTLE THRUSH [Grive draine] was still present on Monday. It was present for a shorter time on Monday, not being around the Mountain Ash tree past 10:30 a.m., which has been its longest absence yet since arriving.

** A bird alert went out last evening on a white morph GYRFALCON [Faucon gerfaut] that Nora Hebert spotted on Monday at the Cassie Cape wharf area. These photos are reattached to this edition for anyone who may have missed them for any reason.

** John Foster has a FIELD SPARROW [Bruant des champs] that has been coming to his white millet feeder for almost a week now. It is also visiting John's neighbor, Suzanne and Alan Gregoire. John comments that it seems very skittish. The female NORTHERN CARDINAL [Cardinal rouge] that seems to have been circulating in the Frampton Lane area was at the Gregoire's on Sunday. Suzanne Gregoire was able to get a photo of the two birds together in her yard.

** Caroline Arsenault spotted a SHORT-EARED OWL [Hibou des marais] at approximately 3:30 pm on Monday, flying around the marsh on the Riverview side of the Petitcodiac River, seeing it from the area of Chateau Moncton. This bird may have a tendency to stay in that area so close attention, especially late in the day, could be very rewarding. Caroline also saw the juvenile NORTHERN HARRIER [Busard Saint-Martin] that Georges Brun and others have recently seen in the same area.

** Jamie and Karen Burris had a good day for woodpeckers to their Riverview Yard on Sunday. The giant of them all, a female PILEATED WOODPECKER [Grand pic] dropped by for a suet lunch as did a HAIRY WOODPECKER [Pic chevelu]. The NORTHERN FLICKER [Pic flamboyant] was still coming to enjoy grapes on the vine.

** Brian Coyle has had a YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER [Paruline à croupion jaune] busy chasing Black-capped Chickadees away from his peanut butter feeder in his Lower Mountain Road yard. It has been there for almost a week now. Brian is still getting lots of trail camera footage of WHITE-TAILED DEER [Cerf de Virginie] browsing the cedar trees across from his home and also hears a family of COYOTES [Coyote] howling in the pasture area across from him almost nightly.

** Clarence Cormier seems to have cornered the market on AMERICAN ROBINS [Merle d'Amérique] and CEDAR WAXWINGS [Jaseur d'Amérique] around his Grand Digue home. From December the 10th to December 17th he was daily seeing Robin flocks of four to fifty and Cedar Waxwing flocks from seven to forty. However on Monday he saw flocks of both species continuously all day, seeing up to two hundred Robins at once and seventy five Cedar Waxwings at once. They were avidly feeding on Mountain Ash berries both on the ground and in the trees, and also feeding on some Hawthorne berries.

** Susan Linkletter has recently found an unfamiliar moth laying eggs on, and the hatched larvae foraging on, her basil and chard in her greenhouse. BugGuide has identified it as a CELERY LEAFTIER MOTH, aka GREENHOUSE LEAFTIER MOTH. Apparently it will attack other vegetable plants. Susan also has another moth about her greenhouse that seems to just be hanging about that we have not identified as yet.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Nelson Poirier,

Nature Moncton