Nature Moncton Nature News: August 20 2024

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

August 20, 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

**The write-up on this Wednesday evening Nature Moncton nature walk appears is attached below:

** AUGUST 21^th WEDNESDAY EVENING WALK

Start time: 6:00 pm

Come join us for a guided walk along the Medicine Hiking Trail at Amlamgog (Fort Folly) First Nation. Our guide, Nicole from Fort Folly, will introduce us to the flora and will relay stories along the way to aid in our interpretation at each point of interest. If you have ever wondered which plants can be medically beneficial, this is the walk to go on!

“This is a 2.5 km well-groomed trail, family-friendly and an easy walk through the woods. It features English, French and Mi’kmaw interpretative panels that showcase medicinal plants and their traditional uses.

Parking is located at 88 Bernard Trail with signage visible at back left corner of the parking lot. Be mindful there are a couple of road crossings.” (https://www.station8nb.ca/fort-folly-medicine-trail)

Directions: Bernard Trail is off of Route 106, which connects Dieppe – Memramcook – Dorchester – Sackville. Once on Bernard Trail the buildings are not numbered, so, drive past the Health Centre, past the barricade, and look for the tipi on the left and turn in the parking lot there to park.

If using Highway #2 From Moncton, take exit #482. Turn right onto Renaissance Road, which turns into Royal Rd/NB-106 E (signs for NB-925/Dorchester). From the Memramcook Home Hardware, drive approx. 15 km (about 15 minutes).

This is in the woods, so bug spray and protective clothing are recommended. Don’t forget to wear your name tag too!

All are welcome, Nature Moncton members or not.

**Peter Gadd received an email from Shaun O’Reilly mid-morning Monday indicating that he had seen an ‘egret’ at Miramichi Marsh that morning. Peter and Deana scurried over and easily found the bird in question. Such birds are not difficult to spot. To their surprise the “egret” turned out to be a juvenile Little Blue Heron, the first time this species has been recorded at this location. It was of course wandering about on a mudflat and in shallow water successfully hunting. This species tends to not wander much looking for food but waits patiently, as its cousin the Great Blue Heron is often seen to do. The almost all-white juvenile will eventually molt into an adult with a bluish body and darker head and neck.

On Peter’s tip-off, several others were able to enjoy an audience with the Little Blue Heron as well. Nelson Poirier shares a photo of the bird at a distance to show it had moved to the center of the pond almost completely covered with Watershield plants. We don’t often see a complete pond dominated by Watershield. This unique plant creates a cover that makes a habitat very attractive to fish and no doubt the heron knows that. This elliptical plant with no slits in the leaf like many of our water plants and is bright green on top but reddish-brown under with a single stock covered underneath with a mucilage-like layer. It does have an attractive flower which we don’t often see as it only blooms for 1-2 days.

**Christine Lever came across a Yellow Witches Broom in a Balsam Fir tree in Riverview. With some Witches Broom, the causal scenario is not worked out but with Yellow Witches Broom, it has been.

It is caused by a rust fungus that causes abnormal growths in buds on Balsam Fir. It is not severe to the tree unless you are a Christmas tree grower that leaves a cosmetic defect (in some eyes). As Christine’s photo shows, it produces upright shoots that are thicker and shorter than normal producing bright below needles. It dies off come winter leaving the broom empty of foliage. It will produce a new crop of pale green needles in the spring that releases spores produced by its alternate host Chickweed.

**The Globe and Mail published a very interesting opinion piece the weekend before last about wasps and why we should stop worrying and learn to love them.

Barbara Smith wrote to Seirian Sumner, the British behavioral ecologist and professor who submitted the Globe piece, and she said she has written a similar piece extolling the many virtues of wasps, not least as pollinators and controls for other insects, but also for their complex social structures. She gave Barbara permission to send it for inclusion in the blog! Barbara hopes other naturalists will be as interested to learn about them as she was.

https://theconversation.com/wasps-why-i-love-them-and-why-you-should-too-155982

**Brian Stone sends photos from his backyard of some of the Song Sparrows frequenting his back deck, some of them young looking, and a Groundhog that seems to be very happy to do the same. On Monday he noted a young-looking Northern Flicker in the yard nervously foraging in the short grass and had a Canada Darner dragonfly land on the side of an open car door beside him while munching on an insect snack. The dragonfly was content to be safely moved to his hand so it could be relocated to the garden beside the house and didn't even lose its lunch during the transport!

**On Friday Brian Stone visited Johnson's Mills to hopefully experience the amazing flight of the Semipalmated Sandpiper ballet but was only witness to a smaller segment of the larger crowd. He managed a few photos of the action and even got a picture of one of the Peregrine Falcons chasing a sandpiper, unsuccessfully. The sandpiper was quite happy with that outcome.

Brian went back on Sunday and had more success seeing a larger flock of sandpipers but still not the "big one". The Peregrine Falcons were still very active and an adult Bald Eagle flew over very low. On the wires along the road, 4 Red Crossbills perched for a brief time, fluffing and preening before leaving the area. Many Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were using the feeders at the visitor center and lots of Clouded Sulphur butterflies were present. As usual, some Semipalmated Plovers were mixed in with the sandpipers, but Brian was not able to pick out anything else that might be different.

On Monday Brian Stone walked a part of the Highland Park trail in Salisbury and photographed a Belted Kingfisher hovering over the ponds looking for an unlucky fish. Some Short-billed Dowitchers were bathing and a Great Blue Heron was wading. Least Skippers and Twelve-spotted Skimmer dragonflies were plentiful. That evening at home Brian photographed the big full Moon hanging brightly over Mountain Rd.