NATURE
MONCTON NATURE NEWS
June 25, 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
To
respond by e-mail, please address your message to the information line
editor, nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com .
Please
advise the editor at nelsonpoirier435@gmail.com and the proofreader
Louise Nichols at 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 nicholsl@eastlink.ca
To
view the live feed of the Peregrine Falcon nest cam on the summit of Assumption
Place in Moncton, go to:
**The regular Wednesday evening walk
is happening tonight! All details below
WEDNESDAY
EARLY EVENING WALK
JUNE
25, 2025, 6:30 PM
Where:
Mapleton Park Trail
Meeting
place: Parking lot P2 on Gorge Road next to Highway 2. (There will
be a Nature Moncton sign at the parking lot.)
Leader:
Brian Stone
Our
walk will cover about 3.5 km over an estimated 1.5 hours. Walkers can expect
the trail to be groomed, wide, with flat paths of dirt and
fine gravel. The walk is mainly easy, with the exception of one short
but steep hill. Bug spray and protective clothing are recommended.
Don't forget to wear your name tag too!
**Aldo
Dorio was able to capture excellent photographs of a cattle egret that
arrived at the Covedell Road farm near Neguac on Tuesday.
It nicely shows its pale buff plumes and buff chest of breeding plumage.
**Monitoring
of the peregrine falcon nest box the past few days suggests the chicks
have now become fledglings as they are spending most of their day away from the
nest box and beyond the view of the camera feed. This is a very good signal as it
means the young birds are quite able to fly on their own, but have returned to
the nest at bedtime to refuel energy for the next day. We expect that the fledglings
are about to leave the nest box completely. This will mean the camera feed will
soon be discontinued as per the agreement with the City of Moncton technical
staff to discontinue the website feed as soon as the birds have fledged to
allow the city technical staff to deal with their busy summer season.
Brian
Stone again spent a few hours monitoring the progress of the peregrine falcon
chicks and adults at the nest box on the Assumption Place in Moncton on
Tuesday, and Cathy Simon also spent whatever time she could spare to observe as well. Only two chicks were seen for most of the observing
period along with the constantly concerned adults, and eventually all the
chicks left the nest box and disappeared onto the roof of the building and
remained out of sight long enough to send Brian off to other pursuits. As
usual, they all got together in the evening back in the nest box for a
well-deserved rest.
**The giant silkworm moths will be out on their mating
missions the next few weeks.
Andy Stultz had a freshly minted male luna moth
day-perched on the wall of a ship he is serving on, docked in Dartmouth, NS.
**Lisa Morris was able to get a photograph of a female
wolf spider carrying her egg sac cargo.
(Editor’s
note: Lisa’s photo merits more extensive comment as seeing spiders
carrying egg sacs at this time of year gets a lot of email queries.
We have two species of spiders in New Brunswick that
carry their egg sacs similarly to the photo attached, but are easily
differentiated. These species are the wolf spider and the nursery web spider.
The female wolf spider carries its egg sac attached to
their spinnerets at the rear of the abdomen, whereas the nursery web
spiders carry their egg sac at the front attached to appendages there.
When the female nursery web spider is about to give
birth, she builds a tent-like structure from silk, places her egg sac inside,
and then guards the nursery from predators. When the wolf spider eggs
hatch, the female will carry the hatchlings on her back and body for several weeks until
they are able to fend for themselves.
Both of these spider species have eight eyes, but the wolf
spider has two eyes that are much larger than the rest, whereas the eyes of the
nursery web spider are all the same size.)
**Nelson Poirier was scooped by Jessica Bowie by one day,
but he was pleased to have the beautiful and largest North American silkworm
moth, the cecropia moth, visit on Monday night to provide closed and
open wing photographs cooperatively.
Nelson Poirier.
Nature Moncton
