Nature Moncton Nature News: Oct 24 2016

** Stella LeBlanc reports that a few WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS [Bruant à gorge blanche] have arrived in their Bouctouche feeder yard. It must have been a very good year for White-throat recruitment, as many observers have mentioned increased numbers at feeder areas, even though there’s obviously lots of wild food available. At our urban feeder, we have several White-throated Sparrows as well and I’m watching closely for WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS [Bruant à couronne blanche] but have not noted any in our yard. AMERICAN TREE SPARROWS [Bruant hudsonien] should start to appear soon and I sure hope that someone gets a CLAY-COLORED SPARROW [Bruant des plaines] to a feeder yard.

** The Nature Moncton field trip of birding and a visit to the Mapleton Acadian Forest Trail took place on Sunday. Uunfavorable weather conditions and having had to postpone to Sunday no doubt reduced participation to nine. However, nine very content folk headed home at day’s end. High winds made the birding in the morning challenging, but with Bill Winsor’s guidance we got a chance to explore the Salisbury water treatment complex.

Matt Steeves met the group at noon to guide us on the Mapleton trail. Funds have been raised, with help from the Nature Trust of New Brunswick, to buy that tract of forest and save it for perpetuity. There were so many things to see and to appreciate that it took the group 3 hours to cover 3 km of it. It is truly an amazing part of New Brunswick and is very, very recommended. Many thanks to Roger LeBlanc for making the arrangements for the day and also Mother Nature for providing weather good enough to allow it to happen.

The event was well-covered in photographs by Brian Stone and Jamie Burris. Some of those are added to today’s transcript. There will be a Dropbox link added in a few days to show more of Brian’s photos. The photos show some of the efforts to create a park area at Mill Creek Pond in Riverview, the Salisbury ponds, and the action on the trail at Mapleton. The photo of leader Roger LeBlanc, using the wisdom of an apple to decide on which trail to take is a classic.

Lois Budd took the group to a lagoon that most were not aware is near the Jordan Memorial Home. A flock of 15-20 PINE SISKINS [Tarin des pins] was a surprise and there was a great show by a BROWN CREEPER [Grimpereau brun].

It was a great day, exploring a bit of beautiful New Brunswick.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton