Nature Moncton Nature News: October 5 2023

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

October 5, 2023

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Edited by Nelson Poirier nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

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** Being sick with a bad cold, Jane LeBlanc hasn't left her St. Martins yard for a week or so. She noted another Monarch Butterfly hatched on Sept. 26. Of the 4 successful hatchings, all four were male. She also notes that as big as her Common Milkweed patch is, there isn't a single seedpod forming. Maybe because of the wet summer??

She is still seeing many bees and other pollinators enjoying the warm, dry weather. A Red Admiral Butterfly made an appearance Wednesday along with a young-of-the-year Common Yellowthroat Warbler that was willing to be photographed.

**Shannon Inman photographed a fresh-appearing Mourning Cloak Butterfly on Wednesday. This species of butterfly will overwinter as an adult, as it appears in Shannon’s photo. Shannon also got a nice photo of a Tri-coloured Bumblebee enjoying the still-blooming Anise Hyssop plants in their garden.
Shannon comments that several pollinators are very attracted to the Anise Hyssop blooms.

** Daryl Doucette got home from working overnight to the frosty morning of Wednesday to find his huge Russian Sunflower plants had big bumblebees on them. They seemed to be cold stuck, not moving and assumed they must have stayed there all night. An hour or so later, he went out when the sun got strong, and there were several large bees harvesting pollen/nectar.

**Aldo Dorio photographed a Gallium Sphinx Moth Caterpillar a.k.a. Bedstraw Hawk-moth Caterpillar, as it crossed the boardwalk at Hay Island on Wednesday. They seem to be having a good year with many reports.

Dave MacLeod has given a nice commentary on this caterpillar larvae commenting "This is a caterpillar of the Galium Sphinx or Bedstraw Hawk-moth (Hyles gallii). All sphinx or hawk-moth caterpillars are known as ‘Hornworms’ because they all have a pointed horn of different colours on the upper side at the rear end. In this case, it is red. The most common food plants are bedstraws (Galium spp.) in the Madder Family (Rubiaceae), and members of the Evening-primrose Family (Onagraceae) like fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium)."

Although there is a tremendous variation in the ground colour of different individual caterpillars of this species, varying from light brown to black (as in this case), they all have a red horn. This variation is illustrated by four photos halfway down this BugGuide page, which also shows the adult moth: https://bugguide.net/node/view/31976

Here’s one from Quebec, that looks similar to the one in Aldo’s photo (or are they two different individuals?) feeding on a bedstraw plant that has 4 –8 leaves in whorls around the main stem: https://bugguide.net/node/view/1405207

And here’s another similar one from Peterborough, Ontario: https://bugguide.net/node/view/1580743

** On Tuesday, Brian Stone walked along the service road beside the CN rail tracks along the west end of Main St. in Moncton. He noticed an interesting situation involving Woolly Bear Caterpillars that were numerous along the road. He saw many caterpillars, and all of them were crossing the road (as fast as their little caterpillar legs would take them) from south to north in the same direction. As they approached the actual tracks on the Moncton side of the road, they came up against a long strip of ribbon rail that had been laid down beside the track for a likely future replacement job. As they climbed up onto this stretch of unbroken ribbon rail, they seemed to not be able to navigate their way over the extended top lip of the rail and turned to try to walk to the end of the rail. That would be a long journey for such a little critter on such a long piece of rail. Interestingly, all the caterpillars turned the same way, towards the west, and were all walking along the rail separated by about 15-foot intervals in their own version of a ‘train’ running along a rail.

Brian also looked away from this event long enough to include photos of a faded Clouded Sulphur Butterfly, a Milkweed Pod burst open to seed, and some bright Highbush Cranberries.