Nature Moncton Nature News: Feb 10 2019

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, 10 February 2019 (Sunday)

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Edited by: Nelson Poirier

Transcript by: David Christie

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** February is a great month to bring outdoor tree and shrub branches into your home and place them in a vase of water, and watch spring unfolding in a few weeks. You can do this with most plants, and I would encourage folks to do so and send photos in a few weeks to make us all feel more like spring!

Jane LeBlanc pruned her AZALEA plant a few weeks ago and brought some of the trimmings inside her home, put them in water, and voilà, two weeks later, Jane photographed some awesome blooms. The specific variety Jane chose in her photo is “Rosy Lights.” Jane also put some PUSSY WILLOWS [Petit Minou] in water a few weeks ago as well. Not only did they flower but they also started to root, so she has plans to put them in a pot and plant them by the river in spring to help with erosion.

I have several tree species waiting to leaf out at the moment, as well.

** It has taken a while to be published, but a photo taken by John Massey in Dieppe in July 2009, and put across this Blogspot, of a melanistic snake, has been found to be the first documented observation of a melanistic GARTER SNAKE [Couleuvre rayée] in New Brunswick. A scientific paper on it by Don McAlpine has been submitted for publication. The snake photo is re-attached today and a link to the scientific paper submitted is attached below. This is very probably not the first melanistic Garter Snake to occur in New Brunswick, but John Massey’s photo was the first to document it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bnoeucccbjeet24/GARTER%20SNAKE%20%28MELANISTIC%29%20PAPER%20BY%20DON%20MACALPINE%20PHOTOGRAPHED%20BY%20JOHN%20MASSEY.docx?dl=0

Brian Stone temporarily detained a melanistic Garter Snake some years ago. To his surprise, it had a litter of 32 normal coloured young. This was before Brian was taking pictures, so there is no photographic record to verify it, as John Massey’s photo does. It all shows that as of 2019, there is still the possibility of first documented occurrences of many interesting scenarios in Mother Nature’s community in New Brunswick.

** Earlier in the week, I mentioned visiting the lively feeder yard of Wayne Corcoran who lives near Quarryville. Wayne has an incredible number of EVENING GROSBEAKS [Gros-bec errant], at 350-plus! He told me about a differently coloured one, which I thought might have been one of the occasional nearly all-yellow Evening Grosbeaks, which can randomly show up that is termed called xanthochroism. Wayne got a photo of the bird in question and it is not what the yellow condition exhibits. I suspect it to be leucistic individual, meaning that pigments are muted to give a pale version. I would appreciate any return comments, if there’s another opinion.

Along with the various patrons that Wayne has, CANADA JAYS [Mésangeai du Canada] occasionally join the entourage.

** I have been noting the very striking bright red parts of the plumage of some of the COMMON REDPOLLS [Sizerin flammé] patronizing my feeder yard. I assume these to be adult males, starting to show breeding plumage. The red crown berets on others seem to be much brighter on some than on others. I’m wondering if these may be females or younger males beginning to show their breeding plumage

Nelson Poirier,

Nature Moncton