NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS
February 28, 2025
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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information line editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com .
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**On February 25, 2025, while snowshoeing out to a trail camera,
Brian Coyle came upon a muskrat scurrying about on top of the snow
crust. He was surprised to see it out in the open and in broad daylight, as the
mating season for muskrats is not until around the end of April. It had made its
way across 200' of field, entered the woods, and then came back across the
field. It then headed for a ditch with some open water to make its escape.
Brian was able to capture an excellent video of the
muskrat. Check it out at the link below:
(Editor’s note: when it comes to identifying mammal tracks/trails,
it doesn’t get much better than this when you are able to see the subject
making the tracks!)
Brian was out to a beaver pond Thursday morning, with the
very light snowfall from overnight on top of the crust. There, he spotted the
tracks of a red fox. The individual footprints measure approximately 1
1/2" long and 1 1/4" wide, with a 12" gait.
On Tuesday, February 25, 2025, Brian Coyle had a sudden
influx of birds to his backyard feeders. There was a flock of approximately 25 American
goldfinch, along with approximately 20 evening grosbeaks. There
was also the resident pair of brown creepers, who are always present on
his backyard spruce trees.
(Editor’s note: Brian certainly had a great few days
making nature observations and being able to share them with photographs. The “portraits”
of the evening grosbeak and brown creeper give great detail. That beak shows
good reason for the grosbeak name. Note that the brown creeper photo nicely
shows it using its stiff tail to brace itself against tree bark as it forages,
a trait it shares with woodpeckers.)
**Jane LeBlanc noticed three American robins in her
yard Thursday, enjoying the mountain ash berries. The hermit thrush has not
been seen for a while, so Jane fears the worst.
Jane also photographed a dime-sized gelatinous object
washed up on the St. Martins Beach.
Don McAlpine at the New Brunswick Museum confirmed it as
a comb jelly (phylum Ctenophora).
(Editor’s note: These are very interesting underwater
invertebrate creatures that are common, but we will very rarely see them due to
their underwater habitat. The specimen in Jane’s photo is dead, but live
specimens are more colourful, showing an iridescent eight rows of tiny comb-like
plates of cilia (hair-like structures) for swimming. They are in a different
phylum with different life histories from what we know as true jellyfish.
I recall a chap who fished smelt through the ice in the
winter in the Cocagne area, noticing a number of these clinging to his nets and
wondering what they were. We were able to confirm them at the time as comb
jellies. They must be very tolerant of cold-water temperatures.)
**This Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2025 March 1 – March 8
This week we will take the path less travelled to pick out a few of the more
obscure constellations in our sky. If you don’t have a clear view to the
south or if you are cursed by light pollution in that direction, they will be
obscure to the point of invisibility. Around 9 pm, cast your eyes toward Sirius
in Canis Major, the Big Dog. Hugging the horizon below Sirius you might detect
a Y-shaped group of stars that forms Columba the Dove. This is one of the later
constellations, created a century after Christopher Columbus made his first
voyage, and it was meant to depict a dove sent by another famous sailor called
Noah. It could also be the dove released by yet another famous sailor, Jason of
the Argonauts fame, to gauge the speed of the Clashing Rocks of the
Symplegades. The dove lost some tail feathers and the Argo lost a bit of its
stern.
There is a good case to be made for this interpretation. To the left of
Columba, rising past the rear end of Canis Major, is the upper part of Puppis
the Stern. It was once part of a much larger constellation called Argo Navis,
Jason’s ship, which has been disassembled to form Puppis, Vela the Sails and
Carina the Keel. To the left of Puppis is a vertical line of three stars
forming Pyxis, the (Mariner’s) Compass, and some say it once formed the mast of
Argo Navis. At its highest it does point roughly north-south.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 6:57 and sunset will occur at 6:05, giving
11 hours, 8 minutes of daylight (7:01 and 6:11 in Saint John). Next Saturday
the Sun will rise at 6:44 and set at 6:15, giving 11 hours, 31 minutes of
daylight (6:49 and 6:21 in Saint John).
The Moon is near Venus this Saturday, between
Jupiter and the Pleaides on Wednesday, and it is at first quarter Thursday
when telescope users can spot the Lunar X within the shadow in early evening. Mercury
is in its best evening apparition for the year, appearing higher in the west
each evening while Venus lowers, and by next weekend they will be five degrees
apart. As Venus nears setting, Jupiter rides high in the northwest
above the V-shaped Hyades cluster, while Mars is higher in the south
triangulating with the Gemini twins. Beginning 7:37 pm on Tuesday, telescope
users have an hour and a half to watch the shadows of Jupiter’s moons Europa
and Ganymede crossing the planet at the same time. Saturn is lost in evening
twilight.
The Saint John Astronomy Club meets in the Rockwood Park
Interpretation Centre this Saturday at 7 pm. Tune in to the Sunday Night
Astronomy Show at 8 pm on the YouTube channel and Facebook page of Astronomy by
the Bay.
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson
Poirier
Nature Moncton
EVENING GROSBEAK (FEMALE). FEB 25, 2025. BRIAN COYLE
