Nature Moncton Nature News: January 21 2024

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

January 21, 2024

Nature Moncton members as well as any naturalist in New Brunswick or beyond are invited to share their photos and descriptions of recent nature sightings to build a fresh (almost) daily edition of Nature News

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Please advise the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling.

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Proofreading courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca

** Another report came in of birds showing up with white/light areas appearing in unexpected areas of their plumage.

Fred Dube had 2 American Crows arrive on Saturday to partake of cracked corn. Both birds show white/light areas in the neck area 'necklace style'. These bands of irregular light areas would be termed leucistic.

It is a bit unusual to see two birds together showing this leucistic feature as it is caused by a recessive gene. We can assume these two birds are siblings.

**On Saturday Brian Stone walked for two hours around the back end of Irishtown Nature Park up to the canoe launch area, and then down the side trail along the reservoir to the main bridge and back out to the rear parking lot. The weather was cool and cloudy with moderate winds. The entire walk up until about 50 meters from the rear parking lot was devoid of any natural wildlife and Brian was feeling like he would be having another photo-less walk to add to his resume.

With the car nearly in sight, he decided to stop at a tree stump bird feeder beside the trail and unleash the camera on the couple of Black-capped Chickadees and Red-breasted Nuthatches that were actively grabbing seeds and taking them up to be stored in crevices and other handy hiding places in nearby trees. Figuring this would be the totality of his photo day Brian started onwards to his car but then heard a slight rustling and gentle tapping coming from close behind the trailside stump feeder and he stopped in anticipation of spotting one of the smaller woodpeckers to add to his meager avian tally.

To his surprise, it turned out to be one of the big boys, a male Pileated Woodpecker excavating at the base of a less-than-healthy tree. Having already made several deep holes the woodpecker was just poking around in them looking for the rewards of his hard work and not making much noise at all. Brian thanked the tree stump feeder birds for slowing him down long enough to catch his prize and then he walked the two minutes to his car, all the while amused at the thought of his photo subjects being such an easy capture if he had chosen to start his walk in the other direction.

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton