NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS
August 9, 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
To respond by e-mail, please address
your message to the information line editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com .
Please advise the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com
if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling.
For more information on Nature Moncton, check the website at www.naturemoncton.com .
Proofreading
courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca
**As
a heads up, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) is sponsoring an
upcoming Johnson's Mills Nature Walk on Tuesday, August 12, from 10:00 AM to 12:00
PM.
All
details are at Johnson’s
Mills Nature Walk - CPAWS New Brunswick
Registration
is required, which can be done through the site above, where all information is
available as well.
**As Louise Nichols was driving back home from the Amherst shore on Friday, Louise stopped at a small lake called Trueman Lake to see what might be there. She found several dragonfly species and photographed some, including a slaty skimmer (1st for Louise), a band-winged meadowhawk, and a distant female common green darner ovipositing on a water plant. Many twelve-spotted skimmers were also around.
A patch
of turtlehead caught Louise's attention, and she discovered masses of
caterpillars on a few of the plants. Research suggests these caterpillars
may be Baltimore checkerspot butterfly caterpillars whose host plant is
turtlehead.
**After seeing the spent opened cocoon of a cicada
in yesterday’s edition, Lisa Morris wondered if the shell she noted may be the
same thing. There is no sign of a split in the shell, and its discovery on a mint plant suggests that some clues are missing, but BugGuide has identified it as
the exuviae of a cicada.
**Anna Tucker got a nice cooperative photo of
a chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly.
Anna also photographed a patch of fireweed
in prime bloom that caught her eye on the coastline of the Bay of Fundy.
**On Friday evening, Brian Stone took a moment
to go outside and take a few photos of the deep orange Sun setting in
the smoky atmosphere that has dimmed the skies for the last few days. A
few of the recent sunspots can be seen even though a lens filter wasn't used,
as the dimming by the smoke was sufficient to reveal details on the Sun's
surface. The rear LCD screen of the camera was used, as it is never safe to use
the viewfinder when photographing the Sun, no matter how dim.
**Nelson Poirier shares a photo of a blue
mud dauber wasp that his cat drew to his attention.
We have two species of mud dauber wasps in New Brunswick: the blue mud
dauber and the black-and-yellow mud dauber. Both of these are solitary wasps
(yet nests can be in groups), build closed-in mud nests, are modestly large, and are nonaggressive.
They both catch, sting, and paralyze spiders, placing them in the nest
with their egg to provide food for the larva when it hatches.
The blue mud dauber is fluorescent blue in colour as the photo shows
while the black-and-yellow mud dauber has bright yellow legs and wings.
The blue mud dauber has the impolite habit of carrying water in its
mandibles to the front of the nest of a black-and-yellow mud dauber to soften
the entrance, making a new opening, then removing the egg and replacing it with
its own.
Both of these wasps are considered valued pollinators because the adults
visit flowering plants to take nectar.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
