Nature Moncton Nature News

Tuesday, 9 September 2025

September 9 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

September 8, 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 .

Pl of calendars ease 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

**A heads up to mark your calendars for a Nature Moncton field trip this Saturday, September 13. All details are below, and the event announcement will be repeated on Friday morning.

NATURE MONCTON FIELD TRIP

Saturday, September 13,2025

Location: Fort Folly First Nation, Medicine Trail

Start time: 9:00 am, approximately 2 hours

Come join us for a guided walk along the Medicine Hiking Trail at the site of Amlamgog (Fort Folly) First Nation. As we walk, our guide Elder Nicole Dubé will introduce us to Mi’kmaw perspectives of medicine, food, health, and healing.

This is a 2.5 km well-groomed trail, family-friendly, and an easy walk through the woods. It features English, French, and Mi’kmaw interpretative panels that showcase medicinal plants and their traditional uses.

Directions:

If using Highway #2 from Moncton, take exit #482. Turn right onto Renaissance Road, which links to Royal Rd/NB-106 E (signs for NB-925/Dorchester). From the Memramcook Home Hardware, drive approximately 15 km (about 15 minutes).

Bernard Trail is off of Route 106, which connects Dieppe – Memramcook – Dorchester – Sackville. Once on Bernard Trail, the buildings are not numbered, so continue past the Health Centre and look for the teepee on the left, and park there.

This is in the woods, so bug spray and protective clothing are recommended. Don’t forget to wear your name tag too!

All are welcome, whether you're a Nature Moncton member or not.

**Jane LeBlanc had a male monarch butterfly emerge from a chrysalis in her cage on Monday, and one more chrysalis formed. She has two chrysalides left.

She also found cedar waxwings, both mature and juvenile, in St. Martins.

(Editor’s note: it’s very pleasant to be welcoming the juvenile cedar waxwings that are expected at this point due to their habit of late nesting. The abundant mountain ash and other berries are appropriately available.)

**Peter Gadd visited Kouchibouguac National Park on Monday. A double-crested cormorant caught his eye in the Kelly’s Beach area. The cormorant was not successful on this attempt to swallow its prey (a huge flounder). Peter saw exactly the same thing in the same area in September of 2018 (photos from 2018 as well as 2025). The cormorant on that occasion was a better fisherman, it seems. It threw the fish up in the air to reposition it in its mouth!

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton

CEDAR WAXWING. SEPT. 8, 2025. JANE LEBLANC

CEDAR WAXWING (JUVENILE). SEPT. 8, 2025. JANE LEBLANC

DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT. SEPT. 17, 2018 PETER GADD

DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT. SEPT. 18, 2025. PETER GADD

MONARCH BUTTERFLY. SEPT. 8, 2025. JANE LEBLANC

Monday, 8 September 2025

September 8 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

September 8, 2025

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

**On Sunday, September 7th, Peter and Deana Gadd paid a visit to Miramichi Marsh. More than 30 wood ducks were present. On this occasion, these ducks did not seem as nervous as usual and stayed around to be admired. Safety in numbers, perhaps. The pond where they are located is covered mainly with watershield (Brasenia schreberi), which they seem to like.

It was noted that they are starting to regain their breeding plumage, some more quickly than others. Even in eclipse, though, the species has some striking colouration.

As well as seeing a number of other bird species, they felt fortunate to see a swamp sparrow that is usually quite elusive in the “swamp". As they left, they were granted a close encounter with a chestnut-sided warbler; unfortunately, it was too busy with basic needs to pose for a portrait.

**The underwing moths tend to do their mating missions as the nights cool. These medium-sized moths are often very drab when perched, but can be very colourful when they show their underwings to frighten off predators such as nature photographers. It is usually effective!

Nelson Poirier had a visit from an ultronia underwing moth that briefly showed a portion of its brilliant red and black banded underwings.

**Delores Basque suggests that the info below may be of great interest to the birding community and strongly suggests reviewing it:

“There is a website under Birdcast.info which is a forecast for birds. There is a lot of interesting information to read for those who are curious about the background of data. It is part of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, like eBird, Merlin, Nestwatch, BOW, etc.

The quickest way to get information -- on the top or right-hand side, go to 'Migration tools'

4 TOOLS:

-FORECAST: Actual day plus next 2-day maps. It is a map prediction at 3 hours after sunset. If you want to know if tomorrow is a good birding day, you have to check this evening (today’s) date. Also called “Night of” (insert today’s date). We can see that the night of Sept 8th will have High migration for Maine. So Tuesday the 9th should be a very good morning and day to go birding.

-LIVE MIGRATION: 24 hr data, up to the last 20 minutes. Plus, historical data. On the map, the day starts at 6 pm and continues the following day.

-ALERTS: Mostly US cities. Some Canadian cities -- St Andrews and St Stephen.

-DASHBOARD: US radar and data. Useful information from Maine or its 2 Canadian border counties: Aroostook County and Washington County.”

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton

WOOD DUCKS. SEPT 7, 2025. PETER GADD

WOOD DUCKS AND MALLARDS. SEPT 7, 2025. PETER GADD

WOOD DUCK (MALE). SEPT 7, 2025. PETER GADD

SWAMP SPARROW. SEPT 7, 2025. PETER GADD

ULTRONIA UNDERWING MOTH. SEPT 7, 2025. NELSON POIRIER

Sunday, 7 September 2025

September 7 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

September 7, 2025

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

**Brian Stone sends some photos from the Nature Moncton outing at the Irving Arboretum in Bouctouche on Saturday. A group of 17 enthusiastic participants walked some trails and viewed some trees and other items in the arboretum under warm, sunny skies. Along the far side of the arboretum, a few birds were noted, including a Bonaparte's gull, a couple of ring-billed gulls, an osprey diving for fish and catching a good-sized one, a single greater yellowlegs that flew past, a distant kingfisher, and some cedar waxwings. Friendly goldfish were plentiful in the small pond at the flower garden, and a blue mud dauber wasp was exploring along a stone wall in the bright sunlight while a hungry red squirrel tried its best to consume a large (to him) apple on a tree branch. Everyone joined in and asked questions, and some even got answers. For an outing on short notice, it was a great success.

**Members of Nature Miramichi had a very pleasant day exploring a beach and salt marsh on the south-east coast of the inner Miramichi Bay off Hardwicke Rd., just a short distance from the south-east tip of the barrier island, Fox Island, on Saturday. At the invitation of the property owner, Terry Power (who is a club member), the visit was made with the intention and expectation of finding migrating shorebirds in a couple of shallow pools. Although several semipalmated plovers were seen (on the shore) as well as two least sandpipers (in a shallow pond), expectations were not met. Three days prior, yellowlegs, short-billed dowitchers, a willet, and a black-bellied plover had been feeding in this very area.

The day, however, was still very rewarding. The weather was perfect, including a good breeze that kept any possible salt marsh mosquitoes at bay. Attractive Fox Island was just a short distance away (just seen on the horizon of the marsh photo) and the very tip of the island, immediately before them, was announced as a Protected Natural Area (PNA) in 2022. The salt marsh had added colour with areas of samphire, aka common glasswort.

(Editor’s note: the samphire is an incredible edible green that is a bright green fleshy salt marsh plant found on our coasts in the spring/summer that turns bright red in the fall. It is getting harder to locate good areas to forage for this delicacy. That problem was solved after Saturday’s discovery!)

On the shore were concentrated collections of macoma clam shells (very small clams). There was no litter or washed-up commercial fishing gear. Other birds noticed included a merlin, a bald eagle and savannah sparrows.

There were many Virginia tiger moth caterpillars, a.k.a. yellow woolly bear on the beach/marsh that were originally mistaken for salt marsh caterpillars. The wooded area around Terry’s home had a surprising selection flora and fauna. A fall webworm moth caterpillar was noted doing its best to help Terry combat the very invasive intrusion of American bittersweet. Terry also shared a photo of a dog-day cicada that had landed on his shirt and could be heard in the distance. He also shared a photo of a galium sphinx moth caterpillar a.k.a. bed straw hawk-moth.

At a nearby large brook, Nelson Poirier noted and photographed short-billed dowitchers and greater yellowlegs at a distance.

**Louise and Glen Nichols were surprised on Friday afternoon to look down at some carrot plants in their garden to see three large black swallowtail caterpillars. Earlier in the summer, one was found on a dill plant. Louise didn't see where it went to form a chrysalis, but a few weeks later, she saw a black swallowtail butterfly flying in the garden and wondered if that could be the caterpillar transformed. Perhaps that butterfly provided the eggs that are now the caterpillars on the carrots, which will sleep in their chrysalids throughout the winter. An interesting possibility.

Louise has also noted the presence of as many as three at once solitary sandpipers (not so solitary) enjoying the growing margin of mud around their pond in this dry weather. She sends a photo of one.

**On Saturday, Sue Richards took that monarch butterfly caterpillar that she recently shared on Nature News, and put it in a big glass jar with milkweed branches, a long stick, water on the bottom with wood chips to keep everything moist. She put a mesh top with double elastics to secure it tightly. The caterpillar ate on the first day. The next day it was walking, and its antennas were twitching at the top of the mesh. The next day, it left a small dot of silk on the mesh. That night it was hanging by its tail and in J position. The next day, it was a green chrysalis. Susan expects a hatching by September 16th at the latest, which is still lots of time for it to be migrating south.

**Shannon Inman got a distant photo of a pied-billed grebe down on the Shepody marsh. There was a family of them feasting on small eels. And a few dark-eyed juncos were on the move, and at home, a northern flicker was enjoying a bath, and each time it got out, it gave a loud peep that you could clearly hear in the house.

**Nelson Poirier took note of the abundant crop of mountain ash we are blessed with this year. It will be great fodder for overwintering birds such as American robin, Bohemian and cedar waxwings, pine grosbeaks, and other fruit connoisseurs.

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton