Nature Moncton Nature News: June 18 2024

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

June 17, 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

To respond by e-mail, please address your message to the information line editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com .

Please advise both the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com and the proofreader nicholsl@eastlink.ca if any errors are noted in wording or photo labelling.

For more information on Nature Moncton, check the website at www.naturemoncton.com .

Proofreading courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca

The live feed to the Peregrine Falcon nest box camera can be accessed at https://www.zoodemagnetichillzoo.ca/nest-cam

**The June Nature Moncton meeting is happening tonight Tuesday night, June 18. All details below:

** NATURE MONCTON JUNE MEETING

Tuesday June 18, 2024 at 6:30 PM

Mapleton Park Rotary Lodge

END-OF-THE-YEAR BARBEQUE!

Our June meeting will continue the tradition started last year of a fun social event with good food to celebrate the success of another fantastic fall/winter series of meeting presentations, outings and workshops! Members and non-members are invited to the Rotary Pavilion at Mapleton Park, where we will serve some delicious beef and veggie hamburgers and enjoy a picnic outdoors. All food will be provided as a thank you from the executive for all your help and participation, which has made our club so successful throughout the past year.

After we feast on hamburgers, we’ll go inside and watch a presentation of photos taken by participants of the Haut-du-Ruisseau Nature Park warbler excursion held on May 25^th and guided by Gordon Rattray. If you were present on that outing, choose your best 10 photos and bring them on a USB stick. Photos of birds, plants, and insects, as well as photos of participants, are all welcome as a way to share great memories of the day.

To help us get an idea of how much food will be needed, please let Louise Nichols know if you plan to attend the barbeque at nicholsl@eastlink.ca.

Hope to see you there. All are welcome, Nature Moncton member or not.

**A lot of commentary and photos will be devoted to the Peregrine Falcon nest box saga this morning as the daily coverage we have been able to experience for the past months will presumably soon cease.

**There was a lot of activity around the Peregrine Falcon nest box atop Assumption Place on Monday. The fledglings were outside of the nest and on the roof of the building loudly vocalizing to the parent birds circling above them. The parent birds did not seem to be feeding the fledglings, so it is assumed possibly the parents were encouraging inaugural flights. One fledgling was observed by Brian Stone and Nelson Poirier making an inaugural flight to the rooftop of City Hall (very possibly with the intent to pay a visit to Mayor Dawn Arnold!) Some folks at City Hall got photos of that individual from a window which are attached today.

**Brian Stone and Nelson Poirier dropped by the Peregrine Falcon nest box on Monday morning to witness three of the young fledglings out of the box and wandering around on the roof of the Assumption Building with one bird left at the box seeming to be a bit reluctant to join its siblings and remaining on the perch outside the nest box. The parent birds were both circling around the young birds calling encouragement loudly to entice them into fledging properly and joining the ranks of adulthood. While they watched, one of them made its first flight and flew over to the top of the City Hall building and Brian managed to get some photos of this momentous occasion. By the end of the day, it appeared that all the nestlings had fledged and the once-busy nest box was emptied and silent.

Janet Hammock shares some screenshots she took of the nest box on June 16 and June 17 going from a full house to an empty nest. The birds may still come and go from the nest but it is hoped the parents will feed them from the rooftops.

Georges Brun has been monitoring the nest box frequently and leaves a commentary below:

“The first Peregrine to leave the box from the beginning was the oldest, followed a day later by number two, then three. It took a few days before the little one actually put his first foot onto the edge of the box. You might call him a runt, yet I would perhaps say he is the only male among three females.

The reason I say this is that while he may not have enjoyed the luxury of food on his plate at first, his physical appearance changed before number two and three Peregrines. Body dimensions did not increase while the others had that extra spurt. This morning (Monday) while waiting for the Tidal Bore, I was lucky to have three of the birds on the northeast section of the Assumption Place building. The adult female was on the second rung of the communication tower above the building. She then flew around the building high and low to get the fledglings to fly about.

The last bird was in the nest box practicing its wingbeat now that it is number one on the runway! After sending that photo, I returned a little after 15h00 and the last bird was on the edge of the nest box.”

**Aldo Dorio photographed a Short-tailed Swallowtail butterfly (suspected) at Hay Island on Monday.

The Short-tailed Swallowtail butterfly has a relatively restricted range in certain coastal areas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. However, Hay Island is one of the sites it routinely visits.
(Editor’s note: unfortunately, some of the key identification features have been removed from this specimen. Butterfly guru Jim Edsall looked at the photo and feels it is likely a Short-tailed Swallowtail but hesitates to call it with certainty.)

**Lisa Morris was able to photograph a pair of Blinded Sphinx moths on their mating mission which shows the flash of colour and eyespots of the opened underwing.

**Fred and Sue Richards were at Lake Louise, Alberta, on Monday, and Fred was able to capture a photo of a Clark’s Nutcracker which is a relatively common bird there but I’m not aware of a vagrant dropping by New Brunswick as yet.