Nature Moncton Nature News: Feb 25 2016

** Brian and Valerie Bauld visited the Tantramar Marsh on Thursday. They spotted a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK [Buse pattue] perched near the intersection of the High Marsh Rd. as they approached from Aulac. They then came across two adult BALD EAGLES [Pygargue à tête blanche], on utility poles, and one kilometer later down the High Marsh Rd. noted an immature Bald eagle on a pylon. Shortly after an adult Bald Eagle came flying to the juvenile and chased it lower on the pylon and then the juvenile took its leave. Brian captured this scenario in three excellent action photos.

** Stacey Lee Foreman got a photo of a LYNX [ lynx ] near Wolfe Lake at Fundy National Park last weekend. It was placed on Facebook, an alert to it forwarded by George Sinclair, a retired Fundy National Park warden. The Lynx is not a commonly seen animal in south-eastern New Brunswick.

** Anna Tucker visited the Sackville Waterfowl Park on Monday. A few of her photos show the surprising amount of open water for late February.

** With weather predictions as they are we may not see it again this week but Brian Stone got a nice photo of a full Moon with bright Jupiter at its side at 8:44 pm on Tuesday evening, as well as a photo of the full Moon nicely showing its features. Jupiter is the brightest object in the sky at the moment, after the Sun and Moon.

( Transcriber's comment ... The Moon was actually one day past full, which occurred on Monday at 2:20 pm )

** We recently distributed a photo of a gull from Brian Stone and labelled it second winter ICELAND GULL [Goéland arctique]. There have been several interesting comments on this photo. Some more attention to eye color does show it as yellow, which one photo did not show well. A second photo does, to indicate it is a second winter bird. However, whether it be an Iceland Gull or a GLAUCOUS GULL [Goéland bourgmestre] is the identification query. Both second winter Iceland and Glaucous gulls have a black bill tip and yellow eye. The Glaucous Gull tends to have a shorter primary projection, that is to say the projection of the wing feathers p9 and p10 past the tail tip, than the Iceland Gull. The bill of the Glaucous is overall larger than the Iceland Gull, and its head is more flattened and less rounded than the Iceland Gull. The Glaucous Gull is significantly larger than the Iceland Gull, but a lone bird prevents that from being a deciding factor. Suffice to say, this particular bird may be a hard one to call for certain. We are going to re-label it as a Glaucous Gull suspect. An excellent gull identification learning scenario. The re-labeled photos, and additional photos of the same bird, are attached for your gull viewing pleasure. Gulls are interesting birds, but not usually the identification challenge that this one posed.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca