NATURE
MONCTON NATURE NEWS
March 4,
2022 (Friday)
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Edited by:
Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com
**John Inman in Harvey, Albert County comments he just had 2 more male Redwing Blackbirds show up to add to the 6 Redwing Blackbirds and one Rusty Blackbird that have been there. He doesn’t know if they were in the area and brought in by the others singing or a sign of what's to come. It seems a couple of weeks early as he usually sees Canada Geese in a week or so and then the blackbirds after.
**Gordon Rattray reports a very busy day at his Weldon yard on Thursday.
Nine species made their daily visit. 6 Dark-eyed Juncos, 30 American
Goldfinch, male and female Downy Woodpeckers, Mourning Doves-the usual
40, 4 Blue Jays, Numerous Black-capped Chickadees, 1 Song
Sparrow, 2 Brown Creepers, 1 Hairy Woodpecker male and a new
visitor, a White- Throated Sparrow. The Brown Creepers are daily,
but not often both at the same time. There also continues to be the Dark-eyed
Junco (Oregon variant) that has been a patron all winter. Gordon also
has some of the American Goldfinch starting to show a heavier yellow in their
plumage.
**Brian Stone sends a few images of a pair of Common Merganser Ducks taken at Sullivan's Pond in Dartmouth on Wednesday, showing their sharp breeding plumage. The number of ducks in the pond had decreased significantly since the snowfall and colder temperatures on Tuesday, and Brian was not sure whether the mergansers had moved on as well. As another 10- to 15 cm of snow was coming down on Thursday Brian expects that the duck population of the ponds will likely be different again when he next gets to visit them. (Editors note: take note of rich reddish colour of the head tuft on the female Common Merganser compared to the more dull brown of the Red-breasted Merganser. Also take note of the thick base of the bill of the Common Merganser compared to the finer bill on the Red-breasted Merganser).
**We’re attaching
a few more photos of gulls as part of the ‘gullology’ effort. Attached is a
photo of a 1st winter Herring Gull showing it to be totally brown
with no grey showing in the mantle area and the near complete dark bill. The
spotting is more homogeneous than would be expected in the similarly plumaged
larger 1st winter Great Black-backed Gull.
The 2nd
photo shows a 2nd winter Herring Gull with some grey showing in the
mantle area and the front half of the bill dark with the light-coloured tip. The
2nd winter Great Black-backed Gull would be showing black where the
grey appears in the 1st winter Herring Gull.
**It’s
Friday and time to take a look what next week’s sky has in store for us with
some very convenient timing for planet watching all courtesy of sky guru Curt
Nason:
This Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2022 March 5 – March 12
This is a good time to search for a few obscure constellations, if you are up
for the challenge. The trio will be at their best, as it were, an hour or two
before midnight. You will need dark, clear skies and a good view to the south.
Below Regulus, at the heart of Leo, and to the left of Alphard in serpentine
Hydra, is a collection of faint stars that forms Sextans the Sextant. Johannes
Hevelius, the creator of Leo Minor, came up with this constellation to
commemorate the sextant that he used for measuring star positions, and which he
lost when his observatory burned in 1679. Good luck with seeing a sextant here;
perhaps it represents what was left after the fire.
Below Sextans and Hydra, very near the horizon, is Antlia the Air Pump. Nicholas
Louis de La Caille was an 18th century astronomer who also created obscure
constellations to fill in gaps in the sky. The laboratory air pump is one of
several scientific instruments honoured with a position in the stars during
that era, but in our sky it seems to be past its prime. If you think of a
compass as a needle then Pyxis the Compass does look like what it represents.
It is between Antlia and Puppis to its right, again low in our sky even at its
best. Originally part of the mast of Argo Navis in Ptolemy’s star chart, La
Caille re-imagined it as a mariner’s compass, although it is pretty much lost
in our sky.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 6:50 am and sunset will occur at 6:11 pm,
giving 11 hours, 21 minutes of daylight (6:55 am and 6:16 pm in Saint John).
Next Saturday the Sun will rise at 6:37 am and set at 6:20 pm, giving 11 hours,
43 minutes of daylight (6:42 am and 6:26 pm in Saint John).
The Moon will be within a binocular view below Uranus on Sunday evening
around 8:30, and it is at first quarter on Wednesday. Venus and Mars slide in
tandem along the ecliptic this week, with Mars being within a binocular view to
the lower right of Venus. Saturn trails them by an hour this weekend, while
Mercury is within a binocular view to the lower left of the ringed planet but
heading sunward. Jupiter is in solar conjunction this Saturday.
On Sunday evening at 8 pm, tune in to the Sunday Night Astronomy Show via the
Facebook page or YouTube channel of Astronomy by the Bay.
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
