Nature Moncton Nature
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**Jane LeBlanc was
thrilled to see several golden-crowned kinglets in her yard...hopefully
staying for the season. Other yard birds included blue jays, mourning doves, American
robins, pileated, downy, and hairy woodpeckers, and black-capped
chickadees.
(Editor’s note: Jane had
golden-crowned kinglets coming to Dollarama suet last winter. One has to wonder
if that may be the reason they are gathering in Jane’s yard again?)
**We don’t often get
photographs of blue-gray gnatcatchers, as their breeding range is south
of us. However, in the fall, we tend to occasionally get wanderers into New
Brunswick, often traveling together. They move very quickly and erratically and
can be hard to photograph.
We mentioned in yesterday’s
edition that Marbeth Wilson recently found a small group she thought was about five individuals in the Botsford/Upper Cape area and got a photo of at least one.
Those photographs did not appear with yesterday’s comments but are attached
today.
**Brian and Annette Stone visited
Fred and Sue Richards on Thursday afternoon, and as they left later that day,
Fred and Sue pointed out a family of three white-tailed deer resting on the
grass beside their pond. By the time Brian powered up his camera, the deer were
on their feet, and two were doing their best to blend in with the fall shrubbery.
Some photos were taken, and thanks to the deer for being so scenic.
**It’s that time of year
when the tamarack tree, our only conifer to take on fall foliage colors
and lose its needles for the winter, is on display. In this short process, they
start to turn yellow, then to a beautiful orange before the needles fall. They
can form beautiful groups, as Nelson Poirier noticed and photographed on
Thursday.
A few hardy flowering
plants are persisting, like the New York aster, common tansy, and pearly
everlasting.
Pearly everlasting is an
interesting one as it simply dries. You can gather the floral clumps and put
them in a vase at home; they will last all winter and bring pleasant memories
of summer. The photo of pearly everlasting is a poor one, not showing its true
beauty.
**This Week’s Sky at a
Glance, 2026 October 24 – October 31
Deep sky objects (DSOs), composed of star clusters and nebulae, are often
called faint fuzzies by amateur astronomers but many are bright enough to be
seen with binoculars in a dark sky. Let us start by using the Square of Pegasus
as a guidepost. The southwest corner of the square is the base of the winged
horse’s neck, and moving away from the square by a few stars takes us to the
horse’s eye. Extending that line by half its distance is where you will find a
small blurry patch called M2, a globular cluster that is the second entry in
the Messier list of DSOs. Angling to the left at the eye we come to a star at
the horse’s snout, and extending by nearly half that distance is a larger
globular cluster, M15.
The star at the northeast corner of the square is Alpheratz, the brightest star
of Andromeda, from which spread two lines of stars. The second star from
Alpheratz along the brighter string is orange Mirach, and moving up two stars
across the dimmer string we encounter the large Andromeda Galaxy, M31. In the
opposite direction from Mirach, and at about the same distance as M31, is
fainter M33, the third largest galaxy in our Local Group behind Andromeda and
the Milky Way. We see M33 face on, which makes it appear dimmer.
The third brightest star of Andromeda is Almach, situated at the end of the
string from Mirach. Look to the right of the line more than halfway between
Almach and Algol, the second brightest star in Perseus, for the open cluster of
stars called M34. Next, look above Andromeda for the familiar W-shape of
Cassiopeia. A line from the bottom right star of the W to the top right and
extended the same distance brings us to open cluster M52.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 7:48 and sunset will occur at 6:17,
giving 10 hours, 29 minutes of daylight (7:52 and 6:23 in Saint John). Next
Saturday the Sun will rise at 7:58 and set at 6:06, giving 10 hours, 8 minutes
of daylight (8:01 and 6:13 in Saint John).
The full Hunter’s Moon occurs on Monday, and when it rises around 7 pm on
Tuesday it will be starting to pass in front of the Pleiades star cluster.
Over the evening use binoculars or a telescope to watch stars disappear behind
the sunlit lunar rim and reappear on the slightly unlit side an hour later.
I have heard many excited comments about the beauty of Saturn and its rings
during public outreach events this past week. It is well-placed for evening
telescope observing, reaching its highest around 11:30 this week. Mars,
Jupiter and Regulus make an ever-decreasing line high in the southeast before
morning twilight, while the bright stars of the Winter Circlet shine in the
southern sky. Mercury and Venus are too close to the Sun to be seen this week.
Tune in to the Sunday Night Astronomy Show at 8 pm on the Facebook page or
YouTube site of Astronomy by the Bay.
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
