NATURE
MONCTON NATURE NEWS
July 11, 2025
Nature Moncton members, as
well as any naturalist in New Brunswick or beyond, are invited to share
their photos and descriptions of recent nature sightings to build a fresh
(almost) daily edition of Nature News
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**Jane LeBlanc saw a female northern
harrier flying with lunch while she was on a bike ride Thursday morning near St.
Martins. She also found a couple more monarch butterfly caterpillars on
various milkweed plants in her yard, and she found a firefly on her
sweet william flowers.
**Shannon Inman photographed a small
grasshopper on an oxeye daisy that appears to meet the description of the two-lined
grasshopper. Shannon also photographed a birch-willow sawfly on an
apple leaf and spotted a fledgling bird, suspecting it may be an eastern
kingbird, watching her.
**This Week’s Sky at a Glance,
2025 July 12 – July 19
Serpens the Serpent is unique among the 88 constellations in that it is split
in two by another constellation, Ophiuchus. As the name suggests, Ophiuchus is
the Serpent Bearer, and he is often depicted holding a large snake. The two
constellations are also intertwined in mythology.
Ophiuchus represents Asclepius, a renowned healer who could raise the dead.
After killing a snake one day, he watched as another snake placed a herb on its
dead companion and revived it. After this, Asclepius learned the healing arts
and his success at reviving people drew the ire of Hades, a brother of Zeus and
ruler of the Underworld. Receiving a complaint from Hades that he was being
robbed of subjects, Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt.
The part of Serpens west of Ophiuchus is called Serpens Caput (meaning head);
to the east is Serpens Cauda (for tail). M16 is a star cluster with a rather
faint cloud, the Eagle Nebula, within Serpens Cauda. It gained fame as the iconic
Pillars of Creation photo from the early years of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The delightful globular cluster M5 is found in Serpens Caput, and several other
globular clusters reside within the borders of Ophiuchus.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 5:40 and sunset will occur at 9:08, giving
15 hours, 28 minutes of daylight (5:48 and 9:10 in Saint John). Next Saturday
the Sun will rise at 5:47 and set at 9:03, giving 15 hours, 16 minutes of
daylight (5:55 and 9:05 in Saint John).
Saturn is stationary on Monday,
beginning four and a half months of retrograde motion. Venus is above Aldebaran this
weekend, making a very bright second eye in the V-shaped face of Taurus the
Bull. Jupiter rises an hour before the Sun this weekend, beginning a month-long
journey toward a spectacular meet-up with Venus. Mars continues to hang out
low in the west in the evening and setting before 11:30 pm. Mercury is just
five degrees above the horizon at sunset this weekend, pretty much ending this
evening apparition.
Summer star parties in the major
parks are scheduled for July 25-26 at Mactaquac, August 1-2 at Mount Carleton,
August 22-23 at Fundy, and September 13-14 at Kouchibouguac. See rascnb.ca for
details.
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson Poirier.
Nature Moncton
