NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS
March 22, 2025
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**Peter and Deana Gadd have had several brilliantly
resplendent male purple finches at their Miramichi feeders for the last few
weeks, so it didn’t take Peter any time at all to recognize a more subtle
solitary male house finch Friday afternoon, even with no purple
finches about at that moment for comparison. The more “sober” colouration was
appreciated. This was the first visit to their feeders by this species in a
couple of years.
(Editor’s note: the house finch is a very urban bird
compared to the purple finch, with the males being easy to confuse at first
glance. The males can be very variable, but most will have a brown crown with a
broad reddish eyebrow with a reddish throat and breast but showing brownish
streaks on the flanks. The tail is squared in the house finch and forked in the
purple finch. The female house finch is very bland, with an indistinct facial
pattern and faint striping on the breast, chest, and flanks. Striping is bolder
in the female purple Finch, but the females of both species lack any reddish
tones.)
**Richard Blacquiere notes that the variety of waterfowl at the ponds in Hampton continues
to grow, with three new additions Friday morning. A ring-necked duck was
keeping company with some lesser scaup. A northern pintail was
tagging along with a half dozen mallard ducks. Also, a common merganser
made a brief visit - Richard managed to take a photo of it flying away.
**It was a very active day
in Jane LeBlanc's St. Martins yard on Friday. Species she missed were pileated
woodpecker, downy woodpecker, song-sparrow, dark-eyed junco, black-capped
chickadee, blue jay, and mourning dove. The ones she got were a fox sparrow,
a white-throated sparrow, and a female northern cardinal (she
missed the male).
**Bob Blake reports they saw
their first chipmunk on Friday in their Second North River Yard. The
appearance was four days earlier than last year.
**Nelson Poirier stopped by
the Bouctouche lagoon on Thursday to note most of the birds present were scaup
with a few Barrow’s goldeneye mixed in. It was hard to differentiate
them as greater or lesser scaup, but size seemed consistent. Greater scaup was suspected but Nelson stands to be corrected.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
