Nature Moncton Nature News: October 27 2023

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

September 27, 2023

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Edited by Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

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**There may be a few showers today, but Activities Committee chairperson Louise Nichols has arranged for perfect weather for the Nature Moncton Field Trip to Cape Jourimain Wildlife Area tomorrow, Saturday, October 28. Mother Nature has blessed with sun and cloud and a balmy 21° C!!
All details below:

NATURE MONCTON OUTING

CAPE JOURIMAIN WILDLIFE AREA WALK

Saturday October 28^st

Meeting time and place: 9:30 AM in the parking lot of the Cape Jourimain Nature Centre

(The Centre is located off Hwy 16, the last stop before the Confederation Bridge)

The Cape Jourimain Wildlife Area offers several trails that run through some unique wild areas. On this walk, we’ll take two of the trails that travel along the coast of the Northumberland Strait. The Lighthouse Trail gives magnificent views of the Confederation bridge while passing through both forested and field areas. At the centre of the loop trail is the historic Cape Jourimain Lighthouse. The Gunning Trail follows the coast on the opposite side of Hwy 16, providing great views of the Northumberland Strait as it meanders through forest. The centre of this loop offers a viewing platform that looks out over a brackish marsh.

Bring a lunch and wear good hiking shoes. The trails are from easy to moderate level of difficulty. Bring binoculars if you have some. Nature Moncton has a couple of extra binoculars that we can lend out if someone does not have a pair.

Come join a group of enthusiastic naturalists who will find whatever natural wonders these two trails have to offer!

All are welcome, Nature Moncton member or not.

** Louise Nichols followed up on a bird alert from Don Pellerin to see a Fork-tailed Flycatcher on High Marsh Rd, near Sackville. The bird was an adult with long streamers, sitting on a fence in the corral area past the barn. It flew and relocated on another fence post, then apparently was lost for a bit and re-found on another fence post close to the road. Louise attaches a photo and a photo of a Northern Harrier on a fence post off of Carter Cross Rd.

**With many of us starting to think more seriously about stocking birdfeeders, raptors are also getting more serious about checking out potential menu items as well.
John Inman photographed an adult Sharp-shinned Hawk on Thursday doing just that.

**Jane LeBlanc had several brief visits from a male Northern Cardinal late afternoon on Thursday. It did not pose for photos but was seen several times around the yard.
Jane is hoping a female takes note of her everything-a-Northern Cardinal-could-want yard that has attracted the male, to join him for the winter.

**It’s Friday, and it's time to check in with sky guru Curt Nason to see what next week’s night sky may hold for us with some nice weather predicted.

This Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2023 October 28 – November 4
Open clusters, sometimes called galactic clusters, are groups of relatively young stars (usually less than 500 million years old) that formed from the same vast cloud of gas and dust. The Pleiades cluster (M45) in the shoulder of Taurus the Bull is seen easily with the naked eye because it is fairly close at 440 light years (mind you, a light year is 9.5 trillion kilometres). The V-shaped Hyades in the face of Taurus is the closest at 150 light years, although Aldebaran at one end of the V is actually a foreground star at a distance of 65 light years. Many other clusters are greater than ten times farther and require binoculars or a telescope to be seen at all, usually as a hazy patch with some individual stars.
To the left of Taurus is a pentagram of stars marking the head, shoulders and knees of the constellation Auriga the Charioteer. One of those stars - in Auriga's right knee, with him facing us - is officially part of Taurus. Point your binoculars halfway between this star and the one in Auriga’s right shoulder. Open cluster M36 is just inside the line between the stars, and M37 is just outside. They look like fuzzy patches because, at distances of greater than 4000 light years, a telescope is required to resolve individual stars. Further inside is the diffuse open cluster M38, midway between the right shoulder and left knee. All three clusters can be seen together in wide-field binoculars.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 7:53 and sunset will occur at 6:11, giving 10 hours, 18 minutes of daylight (7:57 and 6:17 in Saint John). Next Saturday the Sun will rise at 8:03 and set at 6:00, giving 9 hours, 57 minutes of daylight (8:07 and 6:07 in Saint John).

The full Hunter’s Moon rises at sunset this Saturday and nears Jupiter overnight, resulting in a scenic couple on Sunday morning. On early Sunday evening a telescope or binoculars might show Uranus to the lower right of the Moon. Jupiter is the focus of the week, reaching opposition on Friday. On Monday telescope users can watch its moon Ganymede disappear into the planet’s shadow at 8:50 pm and reappear at 10:36. Saturn is at its best for observing in the early evening, while Venus rivals the Moon and Jupiter in the morning sky. Mars and Mercury are too close to the Sun for observing.
The Sunday Night Astronomy Show from Saint John and Hampton airs at 8 pm Sunday on the Facebook page and YouTube channel of Astronomy by the Bay.

Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.