NATURE MONCTON NATURE INFORMATION LINE, Oct. 20,
2021 (Wednesday)
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Edited by:
Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com
**A big Thank you to Danielle Pinder with the Marine Animal Response
Society (MARS) to Zoom in to give a presentation to Nature Moncton on Tuesday evening.
Danielle gave a look into a world many of us never get to experience in
responding to marine mammal emergency response such as whales, dolphins, sharks
as well as some of our sea turtles. Managing these animals, some very large, requires
very trained leadership, equipment, and expertise. A very enlightening
presentation!
**Late Tuesday morning, Peter Gadd dropped in to Miramichi Marsh to see
what birds may still be around. Several duck species, both divers and dabblers
were present. One young Pied-billed Grebe was still waiting to be mature enough to
get on its way was there. There were very many American Robins as there have
been in many places lately, they were very active feeding of course, Mountain
Ash berries and various other things. As Peter approached his car, there was a
group of robins foraging in short grass and, all of a sudden, some commotion
and they all fled, except for one. A Merlin was on top of it, wings out
spread mantling its prey. After perhaps a minute it left with its prey firmly in its grasp! Peter got photos of the capture that are
attached. The robin is not visible, but that is what it had to be as there were
many in that vicinity and when the Merlin took off it had quite a large package
underneath it.
Peter suspects the Merlin to be an adult male.
**John Massey had an Autumn Meadowhawk Dragonfly pose on his car
for portrait nicely showing its brown legs and orange- reddish pterostigma on
the leading forward edge of the wings.
**Mid to late October is when the Shaggy Mane Mushroom favours to
fruit. Bev Schneider photographed some coming up in the Douglas area. They are
a choice edible but important to gather them fresh before they start liquefying
to an inky liquid. Bev shows a cut cross-section of one that has just passed its
prime.
This mushroom species is easy to recognize with no real look-alikes I am
aware of. No spore print is necessary.
**Louis-Emile Cormier and Richard Perron are doing an incredible job of
erecting and maintaining tree swallow boxes. All boxes were recently checked
and cleaned. Richard maintains 100 nest boxes for Nature Sud-est, 50 in the
Shediac coastal area and 50 in Dieppe. They had an 80% success rate.
Louis-Emile had 257 nest boxes erected in the general Cocagne area and
Richard helps him check boxes.
This year they had a scenario occur that has made them wonder why. The
50 inland boxes in Dieppe had no dead birds on checking them while the other 50
in the coastal area of Shediac had six boxes with one or more dead birds.
Louis-Emile’s nest boxes in coastal areas had 56 boxes out of 257 with
one or more dead birds. They are wondering if the cold spring we had impacted
the nest boxes success in the coastal area placed boxes.
Nature Moncton has approximately 400 boxes and each owner checks their
own. We would like to get comments if the Nature Moncton landlords that have
checked their boxes found dead birds and was the location coastal or inland. I
know many of us check and clean boxes in the spring and some place insecticide
and diatomaceous earth to control flea infestation which we noted the first
year of the Nature Moncton project. For those that clean boxes in spring, we
will not know until then if they are more dead birds this year than last.
** Friday morning, October 15 with the beautiful weather of that day, Brian
Coyle decided to go kayaking at the Irishtown Reservoir. The water was
just like a mirror without a ripple. Brian had a mature Bald Eagle land in a
pine tree right beside him as he slowly paddled along, and it began to preen
itself. In addition, the fall colours were amazing.
Brian shares some great photos of his outing on this nearby lake gem.
Kayaking is one of the ways to enjoy wildlife with them often ignoring human
presence.
**On Monday Brian Stone drove to the Memramcook lagoon with hopes of
getting a good photo of the young HORNED GREBE that has been hanging out
there recently. He waited an hour and a half for a close encounter but the
grebe was resting and swimming a bit and did not come close to the blind,
preferring to remain along the left side of the lagoon well out of range in the
company of some RING-NECKED DUCKS and GULLS.
Frustrated at the lack of success Brian headed over to the Sackville St.
James St. ponds and tried his luck there. He managed some nice, close photos of
some of the HUDSONIAN GODWITS (note the pliable bill in some of Brian's photos), the LONG-BILLED DOWITCHERS, a PECTORAL
SANDPIPER, a well camouflaged WILSON'S SNIPE hiding in tall grass,
and a couple of the many GREATER YELLOWLEGS that were present.
In between Memramcook and Sackville Brian visited the lagoon at
Dorchester to find the pipes there still well populated with BLACK-BELLIED
PLOVERS and a good variety of ducks and lots of CANADA GEESE. The
geese and ducks flew up and landed back several times to make for some flight photos. Another good flight photo materialized when a small flock of AMERICAN
WIGEONS flew in to join the life at the lagoon. In the grass beside the
lagoon several COMMON EASTERN BUMBLEBEES were still out and enjoying the flowers.
On the way home Brian decided to give the Horned Grebe at Memramcook one
more chance to do the right thing and he went back to the blind there and
bravely waited another hour for a close up. Near the end of that hour the grebe
decided to begin seriously feeding and as it did it circled the entire edge of
the lagoon multiple times and made two close passes to the blind whereupon
Brian finally got the close ups he was hoping for. Some birds just like to make
you wait!
**On Tuesday Brian Stone drove to
Hillsborough to walk the wetlands trail in the suddenly cool weather. The fall
colours were still abundant but a carpeting of leaves on the trail foretold the
fate of the rest still hanging on to their branches. Brian's first treat was an
immature NORTHERN SHRIKE perched on the top of a dead tree, found by
following its calls. Further along the trail, at the main ponds, a friendly
group of one male and three female HOODED MERGANSERS were kind enough to
allow some photography. An immature GREAT BLUE HERON was not so inclined
and fled the scene only to be photographed in flight as it made its departure.
Lots of MOUNTAIN ASH BERRIES and ROSE HIPS ( note the oblong hips of the Dog Rose-Rosa canina) lined the trail and
even the RASPBERRIES were still ripening in an attempt to hold on
to the summer feeling. A high-flying RED-TAILED HAWK was just out of
reach of the camera but nice to see anyway.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
