Nature Moncton Nature News: August 31

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, 31 August 2019 (Saturday)

To view the photos mentioned in this edition go to http://nminfoline.blogspot.ca

To respond by email, please address your message to the information line editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Please advise the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling. Note that corrections, deletions, or delayed additions may not always appear on the info line and email transcript but will always appear on the BlogSpot. For this reason, it is recommended that those wishing to look at historical records use the BlogSpot rather than the email transcript. The BlogSpot can always be accessed from the website.

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

Edited by: Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Transcript by: Catherine Clements

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

**Leon Gagnon is noting lots of BALD EAGLE [Pygargue à tête blanche] activity around his Wilson’s Point summer place on Miscou Island recently, with adults and juvenile birds. Wood Warblers [Parulines] are on the move. He captured a nice photo of an adult male AMERICAN REDSTART [Paruline flamboyante]. He also is seeing NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH (Paruline des ruisseaux)and is noting a large group of Gulls [Goéland] foraging on Blueberries [Bleuets] in a field near his site.

**Jane LeBlanc sends two interesting photos of four beautiful fresh-looking Mushrooms [Champignons]. Unfortunately, I cannot see the underside, which can be very important in identification of mushrooms, and the spore print colour. Mushroom season is going to come on, now that we are getting some wet weather and cool nights. If forwarding photos, make sure to include a photo of the underside, and making a spore print is easy once done a few times. I’m including a photo of some mushrooms under a glass jar, letting a spore print form. Am attaching a paragraph from Mushoom Expert.com below on how to do a spore print. Jane’s mushrooms are possibly JACK O'LANTERN [Clitocybe lumineux], but that is a very tentative identification. If the identification is correct, this mushroom is inedible. Am attaching a write-up on making a spore print copied from Mushroomexpert.com

Making Spore Prints

"While a single mushroom spore can't be seen by the naked eye, a pile of many spores can—and the color of a mushroom's spores, seen en masse, is a crucial identification feature. Obtaining a mushroom's "spore print" is therefore an essential step in the identification process.

Before going through the nuts and bolts of making a spore print at home, it is worth noting that mushrooms frequently make their own spore prints, in nature. If you have ever noticed colored dust covering a leaf or the ground beneath a mushroom's gills or pores, you have probably witnessed this phenomenon. Tightly clustered mushrooms, in fact, frequently leave spore prints on one another, since caps overlap.

In order to make a spore print at home, you will need to have a relatively mature mushroom. Buttons, young mushrooms, and mushrooms with some kind of a covering over their gills or pores (a partial veil) are not likely to drop spores in order to make a print.

Remove the stem from smaller mushrooms and place the cap, gills or pores downward, on a piece of paper or glass. For larger mushrooms, slice off a section of the cap and use only the section. Place a cup or glass upside-down on top of your mushroom, to keep air currents away—but if your mushroom section is fairly large, you may want to place a coin under the rim of the cup or glass, so that the section is not completely closed and air tight (which could lead to excess condensation).

While some spore prints can appear within a few hours, it's often best to wait overnight, just to be sure. When you remove the cup and lift the mushroom cap, you should find a "print" . If you have been careful not to move the mushroom while the print was developing, you may find that the spore print reflects the pattern of the mushroom's gills or pores, since the spores fell directly downward.

Some field guides advocate using black paper for spore prints, since white prints show up more easily. Then again, brown and black prints don't show up on black paper as well as they do on white paper. I have solved this problem for myself by using glass, which can be held against light and dark backgrounds, rather than paper. In fact I usually use a microscope slide, since I will also be examining spores under the microscope—but if you are not going to be using a microscope, any (safe) piece of glass will suffice.

The color of the spore print is what you will compare with descriptions from field guides and keys. Interpreting color can be very subjective—and mycologists have tried several times to "standardize" the interpretations, without much success. But while subtle differences (like, between "white" and "creamy") may be perplexing, distinguishing a white spore print from a brown one or a pink one is easy enough, and it will help you enormously in identifying a mushroom..

.For mushrooms belonging to the Ascomycetes, like the morels and false morels, a spore print is obtained using a similar method. However, since these mushrooms have tiny spore jets that forcibly eject the spores, you will place a piece of the cap on the paper or glass and expect the spore print around the mushroom section (as well as underneath it, if you have placed the spore-producing side downwards)."

Jane also got a photo of a Spreadwing Damselfly [Demoiselle] appearing to be depositing eggs in a plant stem. The photo shows damselflies are endophytic egg-layers, meaning they deposit their eggs in plant stems.

**It’s one “berry” fine time of year! Wild fruit trees seem loaded with fruit. Aldo Dorio sends some photos of loaded Mountain-ash trees [Sorbier des oiseaux], WILD-RAISIN [Alisier], and CHOKE CHERRY [Cerisier à grappes], and I’m adding a photo of some heavily-loaded RED OSIER Dogwood [Hart rouge] from Miscou Island.

**The Underwing Moths [genre Catocala] have a tendency to fly more in later summer. Two that visited my moth light on Thursday night were the WHITE UNDERWING [Likenée blanche] and the ONCE-MARRIED UNDERWING [Likenée rougeâtre]. Photos are attached of them with wings closed, covering the hindwing, and another with the hindwings partially exposed. Of 3 reared MONARCH BUTTERFLIES [Monarque] that were released in the bright sunshine of Friday, two flew off into the distance, but one flew to a yard tree to absorb some solar power.

**A humorous incident happened on Friday morning, when an adult BALD EAGLE [Pygargue à tête blanche] landed on a treetop right beside our camp, which seemed unusual. It was looking down to the ground, and obviously had Sadie’s toy chicken on its mind. Its mission was aborted when Sadie made a rush to rescue her chicken, and several CROWS [Corneille] started to harass the Eagle.

nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier,

Nature Moncton