NATURE
MONCTON NATURE NEWS
Jan 24, 2022 (Monday)
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Edited by:
Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com
** Georges Brun comments sometimes when you continue to follow a subject, interesting scenarios may happen! He was following a Bald Eagle chasing a hundred plus gulls, then the next thing, he sees it chasing what appeared to be a Rock Pigeon. Looking at the photos on his computer, it was a Peregrine Falcon. Since the opening of the new bridge, he has seen one Peregrine Falcon roosting on electrical lines in the marsh (northeast side). Again, looking at his photos, sure enough the Peregrine Falcon was not too far from the snow dump roosting on the electrical wires. Quite sure that both Peregrine Falcons were flying at the time of the Bald Eagle incident. A few barrel rolls that you seldom see along with the chase.
**With
necessary updates to Nature Moncton Nature News that have had to take place, we
don’t often get the interesting updates we used to from the bellwether feeder
yard of Doreen Rossiter in Alma as she is not Wi-Fi connected.
Fortunately,
her daughter Kathie Carter can pass on Doreen’s updates, one of which follows:
“Mom asked me to send in a feeder report for her.
She has 3 White-throated Sparrows, 2 American Tree Sparrows, 2 Song Sparrows,
40+ Dark-eyed Juncos and on Thursday a Fox Sparrow appeared. A male Ring-necked
Pheasant strolls into the yard when the mood hits him. It can be weeks or hours
between visits. There are both Hairy & Downey Woodpeckers making visits
along with Black-capped chickadees and a Red Breasted Nuthatch. The Mourning
Doves come and go as do the Pigeons(21 of them}. Lately the yard has only been
a fly through zone for the Pigeons. They were late showing up this year, but
she now has roughly 20 American Goldfinch and approximately a dozen Purple
Finch. The Carolina Wren which appeared Dec. 5th is still in
the area. It showed up again Dec.15th and made a return visit last
Monday Jan.17th always to the same feeder.”
**Jane Wood
had a visit from a Pine Warbler to her Riverview feeder yard on Sunday. It
went to a suet blend and peanut butter. She noted it as slightly larger than an
American Goldfinch, but much rounder. Jane was able to get some quick through
the window photos before it was just scared off by a woodpecker competing for
the peanut butter.
**Judith
Dewar shares some interesting photos from her Fredericton site. A Porcupine
has chosen an overturned barrel to serve just fine as a winter den, which
porcupines tend to use as their latrine as well.
Judith also
got a nice photo of scat pile of a Ruffed Grouse. The scat of the Ruffed
Grouse is brown due to its winter diet of tree buds and shows the white urates
with scats in the typical tubular shape of the grouse. The scats of the Spruce
Grouse are easily distinguished as they are green due to their conifer needle
diet.
**On Sunday January 23, Suzanne and Yves Poussart went out for a drive
along the coast. A stop was made near the bridge in Bouctouche (the one
facing the church), Yves observed and photographed a group of about 50
individuals of GOLDENEYES (mainly BARROW'S, ; Garrots d'Islande) which were
in a zone of open water under the bridge. Some COMMON MERGANSERS
(Grand harle) and a few COMMON GOLDENEYES (Garrots à œil d'or)
were also present. Among the BARROW'S GOLDENEYES, adult males and first
winter males were part of the group.
On Saturday January 22, a stop at the Foch Bridge in Shediac
provided an opportunity of getting some photos of BARROW'S and
COMMON GOLDENEYES (Garrots d'Islande et à œil d'or) which were quite
active in diving for food. Doing so, they were closely watched by a
gull. As soon as the duck was back at the surface the gull was
activey harrassing it to try to steal the collected food.
Yves has not been able to identify what kind of prey had
been captured but the duck but it was clearly chewing some
food for about 10 seconds. Other usual species were relaxing.
Typical photos of these scenes are attached.
On another topic, here are some comments about the observation of blue
snow reported.
While the solar light in full sun is white with its full visible
spectrum, photos of snow taken in the shade often show a bluish tint.
This is caused by the fact that snow absorbs some wavelengths in
the red-yellow part of the spectrum and that the reflected light
captured by the camera gets the image with a more or less component
of blue light. The same situation often happens with photos over open water.
This physical reality is often discussed in books and
papers dedicated to
photography. On the Internet, a search on '' what causes blue
snow '' will provide many simple or more elaborate answers
on the topic. On a camera, a selection on an appropriate type of
white balance can prevent the capture of a bluish image. Otherwise,
it can easily be compensated during the postprocessing of
an image file.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
