Nature Moncton Nature News: October 12 2024

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

October 12, 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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Proofreading courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca

**Deana and Peter Gadd traveled up the south coast of the Gaspé Peninsula on Friday toward the 'homeland' of Deana’s family around the town of Gaspé. They stopped at several locations along the way to see what birds might be about. Not surprisingly, they stumbled across a couple of flocks of Horned Larks but in Carleton, they were fortunate enough to again, literally, almost stumble on a Lapland Longspur. Due to the cold strong wind, Peter decided not to take his camera along, disappointing the bird that seemed to patiently wait not 5 feet away. (A lesson learned).

Having heard that a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher was hanging about in Cascapedia for the last week, they took a short detour and were not disappointed. Apparently, this species, like the Black-capped Chickadee, is not adverse to humans and has been hanging about a home on an extremely busy intersection (heavy truck and car movement) to the delight of a number of birders and was still busy catching insects and returning, like an Eastern Phoebe, to the same perch. It was not a warm day!

On arrival at Percé, with a strong sun low in the sky, a flock of Northern Gannets were busy getting their supper just off the wharf, with Percé Rock and their colony’s home, Isle Bonaventure, in the background. Their death-defying plunges at close quarters were another great treat to end a darn good birding day!

**Phil Riebel captured some beautiful images of Thursday night’s amazing light show as he saw it from Miramichi city.

Phil’s high-quality photography equipment was able to capture some of the colour show that our human eye could not see.

**Lynn Dube captured a photo of a female Marbled Orbweaver spider.

The spider is at its maximum size this time of year with its cargo of eggs at .8 in, excluding legs. It is easily recognized by the striking yellow-marbled pattern on its large abdomen. It feeds on flies, beetles, mosquitoes, and other flying insects and generally poses a very low risk to man/mammals.

**Lisa Morris noted a group of bumblebees about their mission on a

goldenrod plant in prime bloom, obviously meeting the needs of the

goldenrod and its pollinators. The bumblebees in Lisa's photo

appear to be all Tri-colored bumblebees showing the red band on

the thorax.

**A couple days ago, on Tuesday the 8th, the Sun unleashed a powerful flare that hit the Earth and gave us the wonderful episode of the Aurora (Northern Lights) that thrilled everyone who saw it and photographed it. Brian Stone photographed the Sun (through special filters) on Friday afternoon to show the large Sunspot AR 3848 that let loose the flare and includes a screen print of the Spaceweather.com site showing the flare erupting.

**On Friday evening, Brian Stone went out to a high area to get to a low western horizon in an attempt to get a photo of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) as it closely followed the Sun to set shortly after it at the same spot on the horizon. The comet being so close to the Sun made it difficult to locate and when found it was in the orange twilight and not easy to photograph. It will gradually get higher above the horizon in the next week or two and should be easier to find then, even though it will be getting dimmer each day.

Brian only had minutes to get a photo once the comet was located before it set and he had plenty of trouble trying to get a clear focus and never did achieve that as the photo shows. While waiting for the comet to appear Brian amused himself by photographing the waxing gibbous Moon and the planet Venus.

**Larry Sherrard and Nelson Poirier have been putting what fish entrails they can find on a woods trail in Miramichi with a trail camera aimed at them. So far, the patrons have been one Black Bear and one Raccoon.

The booty would be very welcome fodder for Black Bears that are fuelling up for winter hibernation.

Nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com

Nelson Poirier

Nature Moncton