Nature Moncton Nature News: Sept 5, 2023

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

September 5, 2023

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Edited by Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Proofreading courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca

**There are a lot of shorebird photos going around, but attached is one Peter Gadd could not resist passing along -- a Least Sandpiper. Deana and Peter had a long walk on Sunday on the beach at Cap Lumiere.

There were quite a number of beachgoers and dog walkers, but shorebirds were not too nervous. At the far end, the numbers increased dramatically to several hundred – mostly Semipalmated Sandpipers but many Semipalmated Plovers, approximately 100 Sanderlings, a few dozen Ruddy Turnstones, and a handful of Least Sandpipers too busy eating to worry about people. Some offshore birds were Bonaparte’s Gulls, a few Northern Gannets, 8 Black Scoters, other gulls and Common Eiders, and a few Double-crested Cormorants gathering for migration. An interesting time!

**Anna Tucker’s family on the Shediac Rd. near Moncton are avid birdfeeders and getting a great diversity of patrons at the moment, which include a pair of Northern Cardinals.

There is no sign of young-of-the-year birds, but I suspect they can’t be far away if nesting was successful.

Young-of-the-year birds should still have a dark bill unless they are possibly from a very early spring brood. They would normally take on the reddish bills over the next few months.

**Verica LeBlanc visited Hay Island on September 2.

She got a photograph of some Lesser Yellowlegs foraging and a majestic Great Blue Heron surveying its terrain for possible snacks.

Verica noted on a distant island that there were a lot of cormorants and gulls out of her photo range.

**Barbara Smith recently photographed a mushroom that really ‘caught her eye’. It has assumedly been sampled by some slugs, but not seeing the underside of the mushroom makes it difficult to suggest a species.

Barbara comments she has no idea what kind of fungi this is but is going to go out on a limb and call it the rare Pig Snout variety!!!!!. The symmetrical holes made her wonder whether the ‘nostrils’ developed naturally or were formed when an insect or other creature had a snack.

**Yolande LeBlanc found a shed snakeskin intertwined between her garden carrot leaves on Sunday. She measured it over 26 inches long. It's quite amazing to see the mouth and eyeballs on the skin that are arrowed.

We know that a snake is about to shed its skin when we see a blue-coloured eye, which is the third eyelid or nictitating membrane which will shed.

** Christine Lever has noted a Red Fox has been in their Riverview neighbourhood for most of the summer. Initially, it looked plump and healthy, but now it looks thin as we head into the fall (not what would be expected.)

Christine photographed a Luna Moth on a street lamppost. It didn't move all day, and its wings look quite ragged suggesting it may be ready to move to its cocoon stage to overwinter.

** Brian Stone walked around behind Crandall University on Monday afternoon in wonderfully warm, humid weather. He noticed dozens of grey Rough Stink Bugs on Alder bush leaves, some adults and some as instars (immature versions). Many crackling and non-crackling Band-winged Grasshoppers were mimicking butterflies as they flew away from Brian as he walked. A Shadow Darner Dragonfly hovered nearby long enough for its photo to be taken in flight, and one tiny American Toad hopped energetically across the trail, desperately trying to reach safety in the grass beyond the trail.

A pair of craneflies and a pair of Meadowhawk Dragonflies were both caught mating. A Moth, a Caterpillar, a Flower Fly, a Least Skipper Butterfly, and a Viceroy Butterfly were seen and photographed. On the small ponds in tire ruts along the roadways, dozens of tiny dark Flies were skating along the surface of the water. In a grassy partition between two off-ramps at the highway overpass, Brian startled many grasshoppers into jumping wildly, resulting in some of them landing in Banded Garden Spider (Argiope trifasciata) webs and becoming lunch for the large spiders.

**Nelson Poirier maintains black boot mats in his camp yard to attract and enjoy snakes. They have been very popular with Red-bellied Snakes and Garter Snakes on warm days this past summer.

However, it was interesting to note a number of very small individuals present lately that must be young-of-the-year due to their very small size. A few photographs of them in Nelson’s daughter’s hand show how small they are.

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton