Nature Moncton Nature News: June 28 2017

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, June 28, 2017 (Wednesday)

Please advise editor at nelson@nb.sympatico.ca if any errors are noted in wording or photo labeling.

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

Transcript by: Catherine Johnson johnson2@xplornet.com
Info Line # 506-384-6397 (384-NEWS)
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**The Monarch butterfly scenario just seems to just keep getting better. Kathleen Spicer, in Apple River NS, which is just across the Bay of Fundy from Rockport, found 3 tiny MONARCH caterpillars on her milkweed see assumes to be from the female she saw laying eggs on June 12-13. She also saw a monarch in her yard on Monday but suspected it was a male.

Kathleen's EASTERN BLUEBIRDS are now feeding a family in her yard.

**Don Hayston and Brian Stone paid a visit to the backside of the Irishtown Nature Park on Tuesday to take note of a BALTIMORE CHECKERSPOT butterfly. The Baltimore checkerspots preferred food plant is turtlehead. A good plant to check out for the colourful caterpillars. The HARRIS'S CHECKERSPOT was also noted, which prefer the food plant Flat-topped White Aster. They also saw WHITE ADMIRAL, who's food plant tends to be willow, aspen and poplar. They also saw DUSKY CLUBTAIL DRAGONFLIES. Note the completely separate eyes on one photo that is characteristic of the CLUBTAILS and the only group of dragonflies who's eyes are completely separated.

I'm also adding some photos of the similar BEAVERPOND CLUBTAIL to also show that eye separation and enlargement in the rear (club) near the end of the abdomen.

**It was hardly moth weather on Tuesday night but a contingent of moths did show up at my moth light to include a very large colourful sparrow sized LUNA moth, one of the silk moths and a LAUREL SPHINX moth, a medium large moth not as strikingly marked but still one to take notice of. Thesmaller colourful WHITE-BLOTCHED HETEROCAMPA also visited.

nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton