Nature Moncton Nature News: Jan 24 2017

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE - January 24, 2017 (Tuesday)

To respond by e-mail, please address your message to the information line editor, nelson@nb.sympatico.ca Please advise if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling.

For more information on Nature Moncton, check into the website at www.naturemoncton.com

Edited by : Nelson Poirier nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Transcript by : Louise Richard richlou@nbnet.nb.ca

Info Line # : 506-384-6397 (384-NEWS)

** It’s always a treat to have a rare-to-N.B. HARRIS'S SPARROW [Bruant à face noire] arrive to a winter feeder yard. Carmella Melanson got some great photos of this special visitor at the feeder of Albert Godin in St Leolin, identified by Frank Branch on January 19th. It seems to be coming more regular at the feeder site and Carmella comments it did not appear to be concerned at all about birders standing in the driveway for an audience as it fed and then perched in a tree a mere 10 feet from happy observers. The Harris’s Sparrow nests in the Boreal Forest to the north and winters in the mid-United States. When it drops by a feeder in winter in NB, past experience indicates they often stay faithful to that feeder yard.

** Louise Nichols got a nice early morning surprise on Monday morning to look out her Sackville window at dawn to see a BARRED OWL sitting on the bird feeder pole. It was too dark for a photo and it flew into the woods. Louise comments in the 5 1/2 years that they have lived in their Sackville home, they have had one Barred Owl a few years ago, but Great Horned Owls usually are the ones they see and hear in the area.

** Danny Sullivan spotted a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL [Petite nyctale] in a tree in a wooded near his Communications Rd home recently. He has built and erected an owl box after plans provided by Randy Lauff in NS who has had great success getting Saw-Whets and the occasional Boreal Owl to use them. Let’s hope the owl is still in the area and checks it out. Danny also took a photo of what appears to be YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER [Pic maculé] work on a Hemlock tree in the Irishtown Nature Park.

** The Rentons got a special visitor to their Stilesville yard on Monday morning when a BALD EAGLE [Pygargue à tote blanche] arrived to check out some smelts to land on a large conifer tree by their back door. Kevin comments it was a beautiful site so close and 1.5 hrs later it was joined by another dark plumaged eagle.

** Jim Brown shares a lucky photo he got on April 30, 2016, of some RED FOX [Renard roux] kitts that were using a culvert as a den site in the Lower Jemseg area. Note the slit pupil of fox eyes similar to that of the domestic cat.

** There’s been some chatter on foxes recently. John Massey shares a photo of a RED FOX [Renard roux] he took in St-Anthony, Nfld. They obviously have some dark pelage foxes there as well. It was a female feeding young and was quite thin but happened to hang out near a restaurant and was willing to take food from John and Frankie as they ate their lunch.

** Brian Stone visited the ducks at Mapleton Park on Monday to get some nice photos of the female leucistic MALLARD [Canard colvert] duck resident there as well as a cooperative female Mallard nicely showing the white bordered blue speculum. The Wood Ducks did not appear while Brian was there.

** Verna Poirier observed some spiders motoring along over snow crust on a very cold day a few weeks ago. BugGuide, who is usually very quick to offer identification of photos, but were slower than usual in response to say that what Verna photographed was a LONG-JAWED ORBWEAVER spider in the genus Tetragnatha. Verna comments that she has seen them before in winter in the same location. Some photos are attached.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton