Nature Moncton Nature News: June 11 2019

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, June 11, 2019 (Tuesday)

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Edited by: Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Transcript by: bjpstone@gmail.com

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

** The excellent venue of the Salisbury Naturalists club meeting tonight, Tuesday, is added again today as a heads up below. An excellent guest speaker on a very timely topic with Milkweed shoots beginning to lively emerge. The details are posted below again as well as a poster that appears as the first photo in the Blogspot.

Tuesday, June 11th @ 7 pm

Salisbury Baptist Church

Guest speaker - Jim Wilson,

Topic The Magnificent Monarch

Special guest - Deborah Carr - author of "Sanctuary" The Life of Naturalist Mary Majka

Voluntary donations will be accepted for the Mary Majka Youth Scholarship fund.

Everyone welcome.

** One very popular trip on the Festival of Nature weekend was the boat trip to go around White Horse Island that has a colony of BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE [Mouette tridactyle] nests. Louise Nichols shares some photos that capture the flavour of this small island. It must have been a fantastic trip noting how calm the water is in Louise’s island photo. On the way back they were able to see a group of HARBOUR SEALS [Phoque commun] and one GRAY SEAL [Phoque gris] that Louise captured in photos. Note the puppy-like faces of the smaller Harbor Seals compared to the more horse-like head of the Gray Seal as well as the size differential of adults.

** David Lilly is a naturalist and avid photographer of wildlife that has recently moved to New Brunswick and is living in Oromocto. I am sure we will get to know David over the coming months. He shares a few photos of birds in his own newly minted surroundings that include a VEERY [Grive fauve]. Note the complete rusty red colour from tail to head and the week chest spotting to help identify this beautiful, usually late evening, songster. David also got a few views of an EASTERN PHOEBE [Moucherolle phébi]. This Flycatcher lacks wingbars, often is flicking its tail, and likes open environments as its favourite habitat. It likes to nest under bridges and eaves of usually abandoned buildings. A GRAY CATBIRD [Moqueur chat] also posed for David showing its black crown and chestnut undertail coverts.

** The CANADA WARBLER [Paruline du Canada] is a species in the “at risk” category now. Aldo Dorio got a photo of a female Canada Warbler at Hay Island on Monday morning. Aldo also got a documentary photo of the much more common female YELLOW WARBLER [Paruline jaune].

** The Skipper Butterflies are out now on their mission. Brian Stone got a nice photo of one of the early ones, a HOBOMOK SKIPPER BUTTERFLY [Hespérie hobomok] on a trail at Mapleton Park on Monday. This is our only butterfly whose larvae prey on live items. The adults lay their eggs in the nests of Woolly Alder Aphids and the butterfly larvae prey on the aphids when they hatch.

Brian also sends a few more photos from several of the Festival of Nature outings on the weekend. Some plants and birds including ALDER FLYCATCHER [Moucherolle des aulnes] (confirmed by its vocalizations), EASTERN PHOEBE [Moucherolle phébi], CEDAR WAXWINGS [Jaseur d'Amérique] snacking on apple blossoms, a curious NORTHERN PARULA [Paruline à collier], WHITE-TAILED DEER [Cerf de Virginie] feeding on the lawn at Pagan Point Nature Preserve, and a not quite satisfactory shot of Brian’s first ever CANADA WARBLER [Paruline du Canada]. Some plants and flowers that got noticed while looking down to find secure footing were imaged and identified as best as could be with internet searches and a phone that Brian suggests might be just a bit “smarter” than he is.

** Joe Nocera gave an excellent field trip on Bumblebees at the Festival of Nature. I’m sure none of us that attended that session will not become interested in this very, very important native insect. I came across my first one on Monday to try the information on identification that Joe shared. I feel fairly confident after attending the session that this one is the COMMON EASTERN BUMBLEBEE, and a few photos are attached. Note that T1 is yellow, and T4 to T5 are all black. A predominantly yellow thorax, and there is a dark smudge on it. I also noted that it was a very large sized bee consistent with that species.

nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier,

Nature Moncton