NATURE
MONCTON NATURE NEWS
August 4,
2023
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**Louise Nichols sends some photos from the Wednesday
night walk, including those she took at Highland Park earlier in the day before
the evening walk began. She was able to observe the Common Gallinule pair
with their chicks, a Pied-billed Grebe on a nest, and was also able to
find the (possibly same) Widow Skimmer dragonfly that Brian Stone
found in this location, a dragonfly that is not common in NB. During the
walk, Louise photographed a Pied-billed Grebe swallowing a large fish.
It was a beautiful day/evening with lots to see at this location.
(Editor’s note: the large fish the Pied-billed Grebe
is enjoying in Louise’s photos appears to be a Brown Bullhead which inhabits
quiet waters and can get surprisingly large.)
A very large plant at the site that participants were
unfamiliar with was identified by Gart Bishop as Woodland Angelica, which
is common in some parts of the St. John River system but not in southeastern
New Brunswick. It is very invasive.
**Verica LeBlanc was able to capture an excellent
photo of a Leafcutter Bee.
This is a solitary bee that gets its name from the
nest it constructs by rolling up leaf fragments to look like small thimbles. It
places a nectar-pollen ball into each cell along with an egg. The cells are
buried in the ground or in cavities in clusters.
This bee is not uncommon but not commonly seen.
Verica also photographed a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth visiting her flower garden. This day-flying
hummingbird mimic appears to be very abundant this year.
**Norbert Dupuis sends more photos showing the
surprising variation in young-of-the-year Northern Cardinals that are
coming to the yard of Yolande LeBlanc in Memramcook.
It is possible, of course, these are birds from an
early brood and one more recent, but the plumage variation is striking. A photo
of an adult male visiting is also included.
(Editor's note: the Gypsy Moth nomenclature (common name) is being changed to Spongy Moth.)
In
heavy infestations, they tend to forage on the foliage of hardwood trees
favouring birch, willow, apple, and especially oak.
Shannon
also watched and got photos of Double-crested Cormorants feeding on eels in
the Shepody River below the Harvey Dam. Looks like a challenge but I suspect they
are very capable of handling this prey, as Shannon’s photos show.
**John Inman photographed a few different-coloured flies of the Condylostylus genus in their garden. Adults are predacious on small mites, aphids, mosquitoes, and various soft bodied invertebrates, including small caterpillars, and they are generally considered beneficial.
**Aldo
Dorio photographed a swallowtail butterfly at Hay Island on Thursday.
Jim
Edsall points out that this is a female Black Swallowtail Butterfly with
a broken tail which could be easily confused with the Short-tailed Swallowtail Butterfly
that includes Hay Island as part of its restricted range.
On Tuesday,
Brian Stone walked the back trail behind Irishtown Park in Moncton and sends
some photos of the small life that crossed his path along the way. The largest
subject that got photographed was a high-flying Osprey that had just had
an interaction with a Bald Eagle. On the trail, Brian photographed a Black-shouldered
Spinyleg Dragonfly, a male Clamp-tailed Emerald Dragonfly, a
female Dusky Clubtail Dragonfly, male and female Twelve-spotted
Skimmer Dragonflies, several Meadowhawk Dragonflies, a Shadow
Darner Dragonfly, and a Damselfly. Also seen were a Square-headed
Wasp, a Carolina Grasshopper, many Bumblebees, a Northern
Pearly Eye Butterfly, lots of Frogs, and a Goldenrod Soldier
Beetle.
For larger
subjects, Brian was forced to look to his backyard where 2 young White-tailed
Deer were romping earlier in the day before he went out to Irishtown as
well as a Skunk.
This Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2023, August 5 – August
12
The constellation Cepheus the King is quite large, but it can be difficult to
pick out. Around 9:30 pm, look northward for a group of five moderately bright
stars in the shape of a house on its side and situated above the W-shape of
Cassiopeia the Queen. The peak of the house is only about a fist-width to the
right of Polaris, the North Star, and the constellation lies just below a line
from Polaris to Deneb at the tail of Cygnus the Swan. A colourful star can be
seen in binoculars or a scope just below the base of the house. Herschel’s
Garnet Star, a red supergiant, is one of the most luminous stars known and is a
thousand times wider than the Sun. If placed in the middle of our solar system,
it would stretch beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Another famous star in Cepheus is Delta Cephei, which is situated near the
bottom left of the house; it being the namesake of the Cepheid variable stars.
Such giant stars pulsate with a regular period and subsequently dim and
brighten consistently over that time. For example, Delta Cephei dims and
brightens by a factor of two over about five days. Early in the 20th century,
Harvard astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered that the intrinsic
brightness of a Cepheid variable was proportional to its period and worked out
a formula for this relationship. Using the 100-inch telescope on Mount Wilson
in the 1920s, Edwin Hubble detected Cepheid variables in what was then called
the Andromeda Nebula. Knowing the intrinsic brightness of these stars based on
their periods, and how stars dim with distance, he determined the distance to
these stars and proved that the nebula was actually a galaxy outside of the
Milky Way.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 6:05 am and sunset will occur at 8:43 pm,
giving 14 hours, 38 minutes of daylight (6:13 am and 8:46 pm in Saint John).
Next Saturday the Sun will rise at 6:14 am and set at 8:33 pm, giving 14 hours and
19 minutes of daylight (6:21 am and 8:36 pm in Saint John).
The Moon is at third quarter and above Jupiter on Tuesday morning.
Mercury sets an hour after sunset this weekend and reaches greatest elongation
from the Sun on Wednesday. Mars is a binocular width upper left of Mercury but
dimmer and difficult to see. Venus is too close to the Sun for comfortable
viewing but it will pop up in the morning sky later in the month. Saturn
will be high enough in late evening to give decent views of its rings in a
telescope. Jupiter rises around midnight this week and will be well
placed for early morning observing. The Perseid meteor shower peaks next
weekend with little interference from moonlight.
The Saint John Astronomy Club meets this Saturday at the Rockwood Park
Interpretation Centre at 7 pm. There will be public observing at the Irving
Nature Park in Saint John on August 11 at 9 pm, with a back-up date of August
12.
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
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