Nature Moncton Nature News: September 11 2025

NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS

September 11, 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 courtesy of Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca

**Louise Nichols checked out a couple of trails off Walker Rd in Sackville on Wednesday morning to look for warblers. Some were on the move, including a black-throated blue warbler, which is the first of those she's seen this year. She attaches a blurry (documentary) photo of a magnolia warbler to show the black top half of the undertail, which is a diagnostic marking for that species when the bird is seen from below. She also includes a diagnostic photo of a turkey vulture, which she saw at some roadkill, until it flew up to the top of a tree when her car got closer. It's not a great photo, but Louise is sharing it because she was struck by how the vulture's head and bill resemble a dinosaur, reminding us of the connection between dinosaurs and birds. When Louise first started on the trail, she heard some black-capped chickadees vocalizing and then heard a boreal chickadee -- but typical for boreal chickadees, the bird was skulky, far back in the trees, and didn't come into view.

**John Inman photographed a sharp-shinned hawk checking out the patrons at his birdfeeder yard on Wednesday.

John also photographed one of the few ruby-throated hummingbirds (young-of-the-year male suspected due to throat striping) he has seen coming to the feeder in recent days.

**Brian Stone went warbler hunting behind Irishtown Park on Tuesday, along the long road that stretches out behind the park. He wanted to try the advice from the article he sent to the blog yesterday, which suggested looking for fall warblers mixed in with groups of chickadees at this time of year. He found three separate groups of black-capped chickadees along the path, and there were warblers associated with each group. One flock had several immature-looking warblers, including a hard-to-identify juvenile yellow-rumped warbler. Another flock had a magnolia warbler and a palm warbler. The third one had several red-eyed vireos and a couple of northern parulas joining in.

Also seen independently were a northern flicker, a red-breasted nuthatch, and a common yellowthroat. Non-bird life included a female black-tipped darner dragonfly, a female variable darner dragonfly, a female white-faced meadowhawk dragonfly, a large pond diving beetle, a common ringlet butterfly, a hovering ichneumon wasp, a small green frog, and a Virginian tiger moth caterpillar. Brian also photographed one of the two large common ravens that are hanging around his yard and picking insects off the back lawn, along with clumps of yard debris.

**Nelson Poirier shares some observations from Wednesday.

He recently placed a Virginian Tiger moth caterpillar (yellow woolly bear) in a container to see if it would transform to its pupal cocoon, which it did so very rapidly. The photo of the cocoon is placed in the photos below next to an adult caterpillar which Brian Stone photographed.

The Carolina locust is currently abundant and, when sitting, it appears very bland and cryptic. However, when it opens its wings to fly, the underwing pattern is a brilliant black with a yellow band and quite striking.

Nelson and Larry Sherrard also visited a site overlooking the Beaver Lake Stream wildfire, which remains ‘not under control’. However, no flames were seen, unlike last week, but isolated pillars of smoke would randomly appear. These are under the close watch of firefighters who are on alert if the smoke suddenly shows flame.