Nature Moncton Nature News: Sept 4 2023

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

September 4, 2023

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Edited by Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Proofreading courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca

**Brian Stone has found an English Oak Tree growing quite rapidly in his Moncton backyard. This tree is not native to New Brunswick but has been introduced and has become naturalized. Note the small indentation at the base of the leaf pointed out by an arrow that helps in the identification of this Oak tree.

**Brian Stone sends some photos from what may have been his last trip to Dartmouth, N.S. for a long time. His family base of operations has recently been moved from Dartmouth to Hampton, N.B., so it would be something special to bring him back there now. These photos are from a day outing to a few areas around Eastern Passage and Cow Bay, including the Salt Marsh Trail.

At the Salt Marsh Trail, Brian photographed several out of a group of 7 Great Blue Herons resting in trees alongside the trail and a few close examples of Lesser Yellowlegs and Greater Yellowlegs that were foraging beside the trail. A few Double-crested Cormorants were posing as was a Herring Gull while a Spotted Sandpiper searched through seaweeds on the shoreline for a meal. One female Common Eider Duck swam in the water near the first bridge on the trail.

Smaller subjects noted were a Cabbage White Butterfly, a small Bee, a scary-looking Horsefly, a dark Band-winged Grasshopper, a tiny Least Skipper Butterfly, and some Ghost Pipe parasitic plants that become erect at maturity.

Down the road, a short distance from the trail at a shoreline site, a group of several dozen Sandpipers and Semipalmated Plovers were happy to wander close to Brian and add to his photo accumulation.

At the Eastern Passage boardwalk (MacCormack's Beach), Brian did his best to photograph a small group of Terns diving and fishing in the distance and processed the heck out of the pictures to try and bring out any helpful details.

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton