Nature Moncton Nature News: August 24 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

August 24, 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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**Acting on a tip, Deana and Peter Gadd visited Hay Island, Neguac, late Saturday afternoon to catch up with stilt sandpipers that were reported in the pond next to the lighthouse. These birds, along with a rare red-necked phalarope, had been reported at this location for at least the last day or so. The stilt sandpipers would be on their way to Central and South America, having left their breeding grounds in the Arctic.

The red-necked phalarope appears to be a juvenile, indicated by the more colourful back, while adults have a grey back. This individual is on its way to the west coast of South America. Phalaropes spend most of their time at sea in very large numbers. Hopefully, this individual will join a flock to help it on its long journey. There were many other shorebirds in the area, mostly semipalmated sandpipers, but also semipalmated plovers, least sandpipers, short-billed dowitchers, and at least one white-rumped sandpiper.

**John Inman photographed a hickory tussock moth caterpillar. John comments that there have been many in the last couple of weeks.

(Editor’s note: This species, like some of the other tussock moth caterpillars, has hairs (setae) that can cause irritating skin reactions in some people if the caterpillar is handled.)

John got a pleasant photo of a black-and-white warbler, and a bald-faced hornet that has been going after the hummingbirds when they try to land and feed.

**On Saturday, Brian Stone decided to go out for the first time in a couple of weeks and joined Cathy Simon on a walk at Wilson Marsh. A total of 37 or more bird species were seen, and Brian sends some of the photos that made the cut, some of which were at the limit of Brian's camera lens but were interesting enough to be included. Some of the birds seen were immature, and those included two young yellow-bellied sapsuckers that were checking out a dead birch clump that was also hosting two northern flickers. A pair of immature bald eagles was circling together, and at least one adult bald eagle was photographed as well. An immature great blue heron was photographed, but that picture decided to visit an alternate dimension that Brian had no access to.

Many young-looking or non-breeding common yellowthroats were all along the path, and a female black-and-white warbler appeared and foraged unconcernedly near the birders and even flew right at them at one point. A flycatcher that was not officially identified was suspected to be a least flycatcher by the birders, but it did not make any identifying calls to be sure. Other birds photographed were an eastern phoebe, a yellow-rumped warbler, an eastern kingbird, one of several gray catbirds, a male hairy woodpecker, a song sparrow with a big bug lunch, and a group of five sandpipers flew overhead.

In the water, green-winged teals and American wigeons swam with mallard ducks, black ducks, pied billed grebes, and a few Canada geese. A sora was heard, a kingfisher was watched as it dove and hovered, cedar waxwings hawked for insects at the treetops, a red-eyed vireo popped out of some bushes briefly, and many others were seen, but some of these were not photographed for various reasons. Some non-bird life included a twelve-spotted skimmer dragonfly, a meadowhawk dragonfly with a small bee or wasp prey item, a leopard frog, a bluet damselfly, and some highbush cranberries. Several large patches of ripe blackberries were examined carefully and then consumed or collected.