Nature Moncton Nature News: Sept 19 2016

** Tomorrow, Tuesday night, the first Nature Moncton meeting of the season, takes place at 7 p.m. in the Mapleton Park Rotary Lodge across from Cabela’s. Special guests will be Adam Campbell and Nic McClellan, two very seasoned biologists with Ducks Unlimited. They will describe some of the local Ducks Unlimited projects that we can productively visit. These two biologists spend a lot of time in the field and will have a lot to share about Mother Nature’s community at their impoundments and some very recent fishway improvements. Full details are attached below.

NATURE MONCTON SEPTEMBER MEETING

Tuesday, September 20 at 7:00 PM

Guest speaker: Adam Campbell and Nic McLellan

Place: MAPLETON PARK ROTARY LODGE (across from Cabela’s)

Title: Ducks Unlimited Canada Projects in Our Area

Many naturalists frequently visit Ducks Unlimited sites to enjoy and appreciate the awesome bird, mammal, plant, and fish communities these faculties nurture.

Adam and Nic will explain how these happen with emphasis on the points below

· A brief Ducks Unlimited Canada 101 to set the stage for their national and local priorities.

· A discussion highlighting historical, recently built and potential future local Wetland Restoration projects.

· A discussion of Ducks Unlimited Canada Wetland Restoration techniques and target end state of their managed systems. They will briefly discuss the funding mechanism for their restorative work and the variety of new methods they employ to satisfy funding requirements.

· Ducks Unlimited Canada is a science based organization and Adam and Nic will communicate how our Atlantic Science Program informs the points above. Additionally, they will spend a few minutes celebrating the fish passage research that they are involved with that has led to a better understanding of alewife and smelt ecology and passage needs. We are also evaluating how these species influence the productivity of upstream wetlands.

** Gordon Rattray has had a doe WHITE-TAILED DEER [Cerf de Virginie] with fawns in a field back of his Albert Mines barn all summer, and occasionally joined by two other does. On Saturday morning, a pair of bucks appeared, seemingly in the process of staring each other down with the fall rut in mind, which will get more serious in the next month.

** Brian Stone got some nice photos of the PRIMROSE MOTH [Noctuelle rose de l'onagre] caterpillar beside the seed pods of EVENING PRIMROSE [Onagre] which the caterpillar feeds on. It is very cryptic, in looking like the seed pods as a camouflage tactic, so you may have to look closely to see the caterpillars. The Primrose Moth spends its life cycle on Evening Primrose. Brian also got a photo of a FINGERED DAGGER MOTH [Acronicte de l'aulne] caterpillar, which was identified with Jim Edsall’s help. There surely is an incredible variety of caterpillars in nature at the moment.

On September 16, Brian got some photos of waterfowl at the Sackville Waterfowl Park, that included an AMERICAN COOT [Foulque d'Amérique] and GADWALL [Canard chipeau] that nicely shows the grinning patch on the bill and the signature white secondaries, a developing young-of-the-year PIED-BILLED GREBE [Grèbe à bec bigarré] and an AMERICAN WIGEON [Canard d'Amérique] beside a GREATER YELLOWLEGS [Grand Chevalier] showing that the wigeon is not a very big duck.

** I mentioned that my nephew and I saw a bull and cow MOOSE [Orignal] together on Big Bald Mountain on Saturday. Larry got a few fast documentary photos that are attached today. If you look closely you can see the cow in the trees behind the bull. They were in no mood to stand ground for photos, so even these documentary photos were fortunate.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton