NATURE MONCTON NATURE
NEWS
Sept 9, 2022 (Friday)
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Edited by: Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com
**First on the agenda of today’s
edition is the Nature Moncton shorebird field trip to Petit-Cap on for tomorrow,
Saturday, September 10. The write up and directions to the meeting spot are
below:
NATURE MONCTON OUTING
Shorebird ID “uncomplicated”
Date: Saturday
Sept. 10th
Time: 2:00 pm
Meeting Place: One Fish Bistro (5670, Rte 15 in Shemogue)
It’s
interesting to note that of the 38 species of shorebirds ever recorded in the
province you could (with a bit of luck … well maybe more than a bit) see all
but 5 any given year at many spots where water meets land in the province. But
that said there are some very special places where your chances are not only
better of seeing large numbers but also diversity of species. For numbers, the
Johnson’s Mills to Dorchester Cape site is well known and certainly offers a
very special spectacle to take in. But IDing an individual bird in a group of
several thousand is far from easy and diversity is not actually at its highest
at that location. If you want diversity,
there are better spots and one of the best in recent years has been the
Petit-Cap Dune, and more precisely, the lagoon it protects. At low tide the
exposed flats create an “all you can eat” banquet for shorebirds as well as
other sea birds.
Nature
Moncton is offering a guided outing to Petit-Cap with our own shorebird expert
Roger Leblanc. For shorebird viewing,
tides are of the essence, so the following date and time frame is very
important. The date will be September 10th and the meeting for the
outing will be at 2 pm in the parking lot of One Fish Bistro at 5676 Route 15
in Shemogue. This is just at the corner
of Route 950 which we will drive down, and in less than 5 minutes we will
arrive at the Petit-Cap Dune. The walk on the beach is an easy hike on to the
point where you can access the mud flats behind the dune. Birds can be expected
on the beach but should also mostly be feeding on the mud flats that will be
exposed by low tide at that time. Once there, you might want to walk in a bit
of water to get closer to the show so bring appropriate footwear, or just be
ready to go shoeless. Roger will help us find and ID the shorebirds (as well as
the many other feathered friends hanging around). He will also share with us
his knowledge of the great migration phenomenon that will hopefully be
unfolding right before our eyes. Hope to
see you there!
All
are welcome, Nature Moncton member or not.
** Louise Nichols checked her trail cam
recently to find that it captured a Great Horned Owl spending a
moment on the ground. Louise doesn't know what the owl was doing at the
beginning of the video -- she thought it had prey at first but is not able to
see anything. There is a squirrel hole at the base of that tree, so maybe the
owl was looking for a meal. Louise comments that she is seeing a lot more
Coyotes passing by the trail cam this summer which she almost never caught on
the camera before -- and she's not getting Bobcats at all which she used to
always get. She wonders if this is a trade-off of territory of some sort. She
also got several bears on the trail cam last summer, but only one this summer.
Take
a look at action from Louise’s trail cam at the link below:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q4s8moaxctn21ww/Great-horned%20Owl.%20Sept.%202022.AVI?dl=0
**Nodding Bur-Marigold
is a wetland plant that
enjoys coming into full-bloom this time of year.
Aldo
Dorio captured a photo of this plant in a blaze of bloom on the marshy shoreline
area of Malpec Road near Neguac. The flower head nods down as it ages so the
seed head points down. The seeds are hard and dark brown, 4-angled with
downward pointing hairs along the angles and four barbed awns that attach the
seed to anything that brushes against it.
**Anna
Tucker visited the Sackville Waterfowl Park on Thursday. She comments
the cattails are now at their maximum height, no doubt sheltering a lot of
birdlife. American Wigeon were abundant, and she took note of the sign
at the Tourist Bureau to let the public jot down bird species they see while
walking through the park.
Mountain
Ash berries
were becoming plump and will soon be ready for the winter fruit connoisseurs.
**It’s
Friday and time to review next week’s night sky to see what it might have for
us to peruse courtesy of sky guru Curt Nason.
This
Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2022 September 10 – September 17
This is the time of year when the evening sky seems static; the stars appear to
be in the same place night after night in twilight. As you can see below, the
Sun sets about two minutes earlier each evening. With reference to the stars
Earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds: a sidereal day.
But since our clocks are based on a 24-hour mean solar day rather than the
sidereal day, the stars rise about 4 minutes earlier each evening. The rate of
earlier sunsets this time of year cancels half of that. Although the stars rise
earlier, we also see them sooner. That is a bonus because many of the finest
objects to observe in a telescope are prominent now, particularly the Milky
Way.
The opposite occurs in spring when the later sunsets add to the earlier rising
of stars. The constellations seem to fly past over a month or two, much to the
chagrin of those who delight in observing the distant galaxies that abound in
those constellations. Earth’s motion around the Sun results in many of the
constellations being seasonal. For example, we currently see Orion in the
southeast before sunrise. Come January it will be there after sunset and stick
around in the evening sky until mid-spring. Those constellations near the north
are circumpolar, meaning they never set, and we see them year round. There are
22 constellations in the southern hemisphere sky that we see no part of at all
from New Brunswick.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 6:51 am and sunset will occur at 7:40 pm,
giving 12 hours, 49 minutes of daylight (6:56 am and 7:44 pm in Saint John).
Next Saturday the Sun will rise at 6:59 am and set at 7:26 pm, giving 12 hours,
27 minutes of daylight (7:05 am and 7:31 pm in Saint John).
The Moon is full this Saturday, the Harvest Moon as it is the full Moon
nearest the autumnal equinox. Saturn is at its highest and best for observing
around 11:15 this week while, nearing opposition, Jupiter rises shortly
after sunset. On Thursday telescope or binocular users might see Jupiter’s
moon Europa emerge from behind the planet at 10:50 pm, and an hour later see Io
disappear into Jupiter’s shadow on the opposite side. Over the next month Mars
will move eastward from the V-shaped face of Taurus the Bull to its horn tips,
seen best high in the morning sky. Venus and Mercury are heading sunward
from opposite sides, and they will cross paths near month’s end in the morning
sky but too close to the Sun for viewing,
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nature Moncton
