NATURE
MONCTON NATURE NEWS
July 29, 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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Proofreading
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** Sam LeGresley is leading a monarch
butterfly bioblitz, meeting at 250 Assomption Blvd at 7 PM tonight, Tuesday and logging the most monarch
butterfly activity they can out of that big patch on the Riverfront
Trail.
All details are at the link below:
https://www.naturenb.ca/event/moncton-mmb2025/
**Deana and Peter Gadd spent a few
days this past weekend on Lamèque and Miscou Islands and they were able to spend
time checking out some birding spots. They had some success in identifying 62
species during their visit, mostly birds along the coast, which is to be expected.
There were many sightings of osprey, and on several occasions, they were tending the young on their nests. At one nest, one seemed to be taking out the
garbage by removing the remains of a fish while the other supervised from the
nest above, apparently!
On one of the inland “bog-ponds” next to the road to Wilson’s Point on Miscou,
a female red-breasted merganser was looking after three ducklings.
At Malbaie Sud, Miscou, there was a
considerable collection of early migrating shore birds, including whimbrels
(2), Hudsonian godwits (5), red knots (2), black-bellied plovers
(10), short-billed dowitchers (12), and greater yellowlegs (2).
While on the north-east side of Lac
Frye, Miscou, there were more migrating shorebirds. They were able to see an estimated
200 semipalmated sandpipers, 9 black-bellied plovers, 20 semipalmated plovers, 3 ruddy turnstones, and 2 least sandpipers on the lake shore. On
the sea-shore side of Lac Frye were 3 piping plovers and, in addition to
the usual gulls, there were a few black-legged kittiwakes, 3 Bonaparte’s gulls,
and also a couple of common terns.
There were many northern gannets offshore,
of course, with the large gannet colony at Ile Bonaventure, Percé, QC, not very
far away.
Interestingly, early migrating
shorebirds very often display much of their breeding plumage, which was the
case for many birds that Peter and Deana saw.
**Ducks Unlimited New Brunswick has
designated Miramichi Marsh as a Treasured Wetland.
Deana and Peter Gadd just got back
from a visit. The paths along the berms are mostly newly mowed. They were
fortunate to see a lot of bird activity. The eastern kingbirds were busy
feeding fledglings. One young bird seemed to have been presented with a small
fish and was not be sure what to do with it. The two young pied-billed
grebes in the larger pond were maturing, and a third younger one was in the
smaller pond, so there were survivors. At least one solitary sandpiper was hanging about. They identified a total of 28 bird species.
**John Inman photographed more
pollinators in his Harvey yard on Monday to include a mining bee species,
a flower fly a.k.a. hover fly (doing an excellent wasp imitation), and a
soldier beetle species.
**Last Friday, Brian Stone visited
Baie Verte to locate the small group of seaside dragonlet dragonflies
that were found by Louise Nichols earlier. He found several specimens of female
dragonlets in one area and a single male specimen in a nearby location. A few
other photographic subjects that were captured were one of several belted
whiteface dragonflies, a northern pearly eye butterfly, a common
wood nymph butterfly, and a scary-looking hoverfly suspected to
be Polydontomyia curvipes.
That "trail" at the end of
the Siddall Rd. in Baie Verte is now a private driveway to a person's home. No
trespassing.
Brian was walking with his eyes down,
looking for dragonflies, and didn't see the signs. The owner drove up behind
him, surprising him. He stopped to check Brian out and seemed pleasant enough
about the trespassing.
Nelson
Poirier.
Nature Moncton
