NATURE
MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, 26 December 2020 (Saturday)
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Edited by:
Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com
Transcript by: Catherine Clements
Info Line #: 506-384-6397 (384-NEWS)
**Brian Stone was a bit surprised to find his
lot-purchased BALSAM FIR [Sapin baumier] Christmas tree was bursting out
cone-like structures. Doug Hiltz from the Maritime College of Forest Technology
confirms that they are indeed immature female seed cones. Doug comments these
little cones would have emerged from reproductive buds this past spring and
grew to their current form over the summer. This coming spring, they would have
opened to become receptive to pollen, to have mature seeds and break up to
release them. This may occur more than we think, so watch your Christmas tree
for a few surprises.
**On December 20th I saw a nest that I felt to be a SQUIRREL’s nest (drey) [Écureuil gris] and posted a photo. Ron Arsenault returned a comment. He wondered if it may not be a bird’s nest that a DEER MOUSE [Souris sylvestre] had taken over and put on a dried grass cover to retrofit it as its nest, and the snow on the photo at the time was covering the mouse nest addition. I recently retrieved the nest for closer scrutiny and suspect Ron is spot on. When brought inside and the snow melted off, it revealed a dried grass mound over a bird’s nest, as when the grass was removed, it clearly originally was a bird’s nest. There were some seeds stored in the mouse nest, but I could not identify its entrance hole. Ron suggests that it may be a BLUE JAY [Geai bleu] nest originally, and with the grassy roof removed, it matched well with a nest guide’s description of the typical Blue Jay nest. It was approximately 12 feet off the ground in an Alder [Aulne] swale.
**It may be a quiet week, with travel restrictions, so it
is a good time to prepare an approximately 15-minute presentation for Nature
Moncton Members’ Night on January 19th. This will be virtual, and a PowerPoint
presentation, a photo series, or an oral presentation could be arranged for
folks to give right from their home. Fred Richards will tutor anyone who wishes
to give a presentation. Please advise Fred if you have something to share, so
he can line up the evening, at fredrichards@rogers.com. The write-up is
attached below.
NATURE MONCTON JANUARY MEETING
JANUARY 19, 2021 AT 7:00 PM
VIRTUAL MEETING
MEMBERS’ NIGHT
Covid-19 and the necessity of
virtual meetings will not stop us from holding our usual January “Members’
Night”! Have you had an interesting
encounter with nature in the past year?
Have you taken some good photos of birds, insects, animals or anything
else in the various habitats of New Brunswick? This past year brought nature
especially close to all of us and many of us developed a stronger and more
intimate relationship with the outdoor world. The January Nature Moncton
meeting belongs to members like you who would like to share their photos and
stories of that world in short 15-minute presentations.
If you have something you
would like to share, contact Fred Richards at fredrichards@rogers.com
and he will instruct you how to present on our virtual platform (very easy!)
and do a short practice run with you.
Let’s start 2021 off the right
way – by sharing with one another our positive experiences of the natural world
around us!
For those who want to attend
the meeting, check the Nature Moncton BlogSpot a few days before for a link to
connect. All are welcome, Nature Moncton
member or not.
Nelson Poirier, Nature Moncton
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