Nature Moncton Nature News: Oct 16 2018

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, October16, 2018 (Tuesday)

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Edited by: Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Transcript by: Brian Stone bjpstone@gmail.com

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

** Tonight, Tuesday night, is Nature Moncton meeting night at 7:00 at the Mapleton Rotary lodge. Our guest speaker, Heather Loomer, will join us from Fredericton to present on the Protected Natural Areas in New Brunswick and will be concentrating on two nearby ones, the Canaan Bog and the Caledonia Gorge, to prepare us for visits to them. We hope to visit the Gorge as a group this coming Saturday, October 20, to absorb its fall beauty and then the Canaan Bog in the spring. The write up for Heather’s presentation is attached below.

Nature Moncton October Meeting

Tuesday, October 16, 2018 at 7:00 p.m.

Mapleton Rotary Lodge (across from former Cabela’s)

New Brunswick’s Protected Natural Areas

Guest Speaker: Heather Loomer

New Brunswick’s Protected Natural Areas (PNAs) are designated sites, protected in perpetuity, for the conservation of New Brunswick’s diversity of flora and fauna and the natural spaces, habitats, and ecosystems on which they depend. Currently in New Brunswick there are 208 sites designated under PNA legislation protecting a total of 274,000 hectares of land and inland waters.

Heather Loomer is a biologist with the Protected Natural Areas Section of the Dept. Energy and Resource Development in Fredericton. Heather’s presentation will highlight a few of these sites, explaining why they are worthy of protecting and visiting.

Heather’s presentation will provide some special areas for folks to visit and what to look for that led to their protection.

All are welcome, Nature Moncton Member or not.

The theme for the second half of the meeting is “Wild Mushrooms” and it is expected that lots of mushrooms will be brought in by participants for the show and tell tables for folks to get more familiar with the bountiful crop this year. Folks contributing gathered specimens for the tables are asked to arrive at 6:30 so they can be set up on tables and be ready to start promptly in the second half of the meeting.

** Ducks Unlimited has donated ten duck nest boxes to Nature Moncton. The winter season is an excellent time to erect these boxes as one can get them out on trees in shallow ponds and other suitable sites, ready for potential early spring patrons. These nest boxes are constructed to Ducks Unlimited standards with easy to open doors for clean out and wire on the front walls to help young ducklings climb out easily. For folks that would like some send me a note at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com and they can get them at tonight’s meeting or if not at the meeting then they can pick them up later. These boxes are expensive to construct properly so all thanks to Ducks Unlimited for donating them.

** Margaret Forster has had a juvenile WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW [Bruant à couronne blanche] visiting her Fredericton yard in the past days and got some nice photos of her special visitor. Feeder visits from the White-crowned Sparrow are special as we get such a short time window to see them since they only pass through travelling north in the spring and south in the fall to breed to the north of us. The adults are easy to spot with their fluorescent black and white striped crown and clean, light breast, however the immatures can be easy to overlook as those stripes are tan brownish with some streaking on the underparts. Thank you Margaret Forster for sharing your photos to remind us all about this potential visitor at this time of year.

Louise Nichols spotted a CACKLING GOOSE in company of Canada Geese at the Sackville Waterfowl Park earlier this week and got a photo that shows the notable size differential. This may be the same individual that was observed in the Memramcook area recently.

** Aldo Dorio spotted a BOHEMIAN WAXWING [Jaseur boréal] at Hay Island on Monday. It was a lone bird so it is hard to say whether this is an advance guard of this species about to join us for the winter or just a lone stray. Hopefully it is a leader of the pack so we can enjoy roaming flocks of these berry and small fruit connoisseurs this winter.

** Brian Stone sends some photos of the mushrooms he has gathered for tonight’s mushroom show to provide a primer, all taken in the immediate area. Brian also came across a cool GARTER SNAKE [couleuvre rayée] that seemed to appreciate very much being handled by a warm hand. A scenario that Brian enjoys as much as the snakes he encounters and gives some great photo ops. Brian also includes a photo of the Moon and the planet Saturn as they appeared at 7:10 pm on October 14.

** Sparrows can be so easy to overlook this time of year. On Monday I noted what seemed to be a smaller Sparrow with the Song Sparrows and White-throated Sparrows and it turned out to be a CHIPPING SPARROW [Bruant familier] in winter plumage. Note the dark eye line that extends right to the bill to quickly call it a Chipping Sparrow. Its bright chestnut crown of the summer becomes streaked brown and the dark bill fades to yellow, especially the lower mandible. Normally very few Chipping Sparrows will stay with us all winter but there are always a few somewhere in the province, usually a faithful patron at a feeder yard.

nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier,

Nature Moncton