Nature Moncton Nature News: Feb 19 2023

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

Feb 19, 2023

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Edited by Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Proofreading courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca

** John Inman had his Red-bellied Woodpecker reappear after a 3 week absence.
A very colourful Red-winged Blackbird also posed for a pleasant photograph.
John noted a football size nest approximately 35 feet up a tree in the back of his Harvey, Albert County home. The Deer Mouse is recognized as building this type of nest in trees. Other suggestions as to the owner would be welcomed.
The Asian Multicoloured Lady Beetle is a non-native lady beetle which tends to seek human habitations to overwinter. John and Shannon Inman noted a very colourful one in their home in February. These adults do not normally feed during their winter siesta, but Shannon noted it taking quite an interest in a piece of soggy apple pie crust!

** Jane LeBlanc in St. Martins still has Evening Grosbeaks coming to her feeder. On Saturday morning, after the ice storm Friday, they made for a nice photo op.

**The variation that can occur in the plumage of the common Rock Pigeon can be remarkable. No doubt escapees of domestically raised birds have contributed to this.

Aldo Dorio took note of a lineup on a utility wire near his Neguac home that demonstrates that.

**Lynn Dube spotted a quartet of American Black Ducks enjoying Saturday’s pleasant Sun on the ice beside one of the very few open streams at Gray Brook Marsh.

**Brian Stone walked for 2 hours behind Irishtown Nature Park on Saturday and saw no birds. He did get some interesting tracks though in the fresh snow cover. Besides the infrequent Snowshoe Hare tracks/trails, there were two other types. One was a bit smaller than a squirrel and was two feet apart where it crossed the trail and one foot apart where it went down the steep side of the ditch. There were only a couple examples of that one. The interesting one was an unbroken stream of tracks about one and a half inches wide that went on for maybe two hundred feet, weaving in and out among the brush on the side of the trail and sometimes seemed to end or begin out of nowhere. (Editor’s note: this will take a little more perusal, and comments are very welcome).

Brian also got an interesting nest about eye level with snow cover, about 9 or 10 feet up in some saplings, rather suggestive of that of a Cedar Waxwing due to the significant structural component of Old Man’s Beard Lichen (Usnea sp).

**Seedy Saturday took place yesterday at the Hillsborough Farmers Market and was a great success. Fred and Sue Richards manned a Nature Moncton booth at the event, which was very well received.

All appreciation to Fred and Sue to so well represent Nature Moncton at this event.

**Paul Gaudet, manager of interpretive services at Hopewell Rocks, advises about a film documentary that will be premiering on Sunday, February 26^th, at the Vogue theatre in downtown Sackville at 2:00 P.M. Paul comments he expects it to be extremely well done. It is on the sandpiper migration and includes lots of Peregrine Falcon footage as well. It is filmed for the most part at Johnson’s Mills and environs, with some footage from Hopewell Rocks as well and perhaps other places. Paul is attending and bringing 3 of his interpreters. Paul checked with Anas (the filmmaker), and he said that any and all are welcome to attend.