NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, April
4, 2021 (Sunday)
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Edited by: Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com
Transcript by: Louise Nichols nicholsl@eastlink.ca
Info Line # 506-384-6397 (384-NEWS)
** Ron Steeves just could not resist
the seabird migration again on Saturday.
He stopped at the New Horton church at daybreak to find a BARRED OWL [Chouette
rayée] sitting on
the church, waiting for the Easter service.
What a lucky bird observation to start the day! It may have been seeking out one of the SNOWSHOE HARES [Lièvre
d'Amérique] that
frequent the alders behind the church. I
am sure the Barred Owl would think of the Easter Bunny in different terms to
our folklore.
Ron went to Cape Enrage at 7:00 AM and
stayed until noon, certainly a back-to-earth day in relation to Friday, but
still a reasonable amount of activity.
Surprisingly, practically no movement of scoters on Saturday, having
counted only 135 with any of them identifiable as BLACK SCOTERS [Macreuse noire].
He also had the first-of-the-year cormorants (10) which seemed to be DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS
[Cormoran à aigrettes] heading to
Nova Scotia, and 12 RED-THROATED LOONS [Plongeon catmarin].
The count for COMMON EIDERS [Eider à duvet] ended up at 3,410 birds from 23 flocks with the
largest flock estimated at 500 birds.
Ron spent about 2 hours at the New Horton Church after lunch and saw
about 800 eiders winging their way up the bay.
He had a couple of TURKEY VULTURES [Urubu à tête rouge] that might have been migrating and had
3 BALD
EAGLES [Pygargue à tête blanche] thought to be migrating, and one of them was
certainly very suspicious of a GOLDEN EAGLE [Aigle royal]. It is
always difficult in that area to determine whether vultures and eagles are
really migrating or are resident birds.
These birds moved directly up the bay.
** John-Paul and Stella LeBlanc spotted
a HOUSE
SPARROW [Moineau domestique] in their
Bouctouche yard on Saturday. It is the
first time they’ve had this species that they have seen in their yard. The House Sparrow population has reduced
dramatically in New Brunswick. This is a
non-native sparrow that, when the population was high, was a major threat to
cavity nesters like Tree Sparrows and Eastern Bluebirds, so their demise has
met with mixed reactions as some of our native birds are doing better without
the aggressive competition from the House Sparrow.
**Georges Brun watched a BEAVER moving
upstream into Halls Creek but panicked when some folks shouted out on Saturday.
It headed back across the Petitcodiac River then back across until Georges lost
sight of it further downriver. This is an ongoing event each Spring at
this time. Either one will head upriver past the control structure or move up
Halls Creek then either enter Humphrey Brook or the North or West Branch Halls
Creek.
It would be
assumed these animals are seeking new territory.
**Aldo Dorio
spotted HOODED MERGANSERS off Hay Island on Saturday. The males were in their
striking adult breeding plumage. They would be staging to head to a freshwater
pond at this time to start seasonal housekeeping.
** When hoards of COMMON REDPOLLS [Sizerin
flammé] arrived,
we enjoyed them, but sure lost the diversity of bird yard patrons in our yard,
including the pair of NORTHERN CARDINALS [Cardinal rouge] we had regularly earlier in the season. It was therefore rewarding to see a female Northern
Cardinal very shyly checking things out again on Saturday and to hear a male
vocalizing nearby although not able to see it.
** A very important heads-up on the
Nature Moncton virtual and outdoor presentation on ducks coming up: presenter and guide Roger Leblanc has decided
the week after may be much more productive for those events, so all is
postponed to the same days the next week.
Also in more complete compliance with Covid-19 guidelines, all
participants for the outing are asked to register in advance with Louise
Nichols. All this is outlined in the
write-up for the events attached below.
NATURE MONCTON EVENT
WHAT’S THAT DUCK?: A WORKSHOP/OUTING ON DABBLING AND DIVING DUCKS
Workshop (Virtual):
Thurs. April 15th from 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Outing: Sat. April 17th (rain date: Sun.
Apr. 18th) from 10:00 into the afternoon. (**Bring a lunch)
Meeting Place for
Outing: Rte 114 and Steeves St.,
Hillsborough (meet at the lot in back of the post office, near the fighter jet
at the far end).
Presenter and Guide:
Roger Leblanc
Registration (for outing
only): with Louise Nichols –
nicholsl@eastlink.ca
Cost: $5:00 for members/$10.00 for non-members (to
be paid at the outing on April 17th)
With the arrival of spring, many bird species that have left us for more
moderate climes will be coming back. Amongst
the first to return, and certainly some of the most colorful, are ducks. Now some ducks, mostly sea ducks, have toughed
it out and stayed with us through winter, but their habits and behaviors are so
different that they justify a separate treatment. At this workshop/outing, we will concentrate
only on dabbling and diving ducks found on inland bodies of water. So what is the difference between dabbling and
diving? In this workshop we will learn the
answer to that question and how to tell them apart. Dressed in their spring finest, dabbling and
diving ducks have already started coming back to us. On arrival, they first congregate in bays,
waterways and impoundments before getting down to the arduous matter of
producing next year’s offspring. This makes
April the perfect time to learn to recognize them or simply brush up on your duck
ID skills. And if you are just getting
into “birdwatching,” ducks are a perfect place to start because they are big,
colourful, have a tendency to stay put long enough for one to study them and many
are jam-packed with identification-helping field marks. Still some, females in particular, can be
confusing. So to help you out with this,
Nature Moncton is offering this combination workshop and outing. With our own Roger
Leblanc, we will first have an online weekday evening workshop to study the 14 species
of dabbling or diving ducks that can be expected in the region now. We will
learn how to separate them by habitat, behavior, and field marks. Roger will
also share with us his experience-based “tools of the trade” for duck
identification. Then on the weekend we will head out to a couple of duck hot
spots in the Hillsborough region where ducks are findable in mixed groups at
this time of year. There, with Roger’s
help, we will work on using the knowledge learned in the workshop to ID them to
species. All in all, a great learning
and fun-filled experience that should help you better answer the question: “What’s
that duck?”
All are welcome, Nature Moncton member or not.
** Bring a scope if you have one, and binoculars. Roger will have an extra scope and binoculars
available if anyone needs them.
Nelson Poirier,
Nature Moncton
