NATURE MONCTON NATURE NEWS
October 4, 2025
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**Hay
Island is a popular coastal fueling spot for the American pipit on its
fall migration south.
Aldo
Dorio was able to photograph one at that site on Friday.
**Shannon
Inman checked out the Lars Larson marsh in Harvey, which was murky from low water
conditions.
She
photographed a mussel. Dwayne Sabine reviewed the photo and felt there
was a good chance it may be an eastern elliptio. Shannon also photographed a fresh-looking clouded
sulphur butterfly and some killifish minnows, which looked quite
content in the murky water.
A
merlin also dropped by their home yard to check on what the other
raptors were up to.
(Editor’s
note: We don’t very often get photos of mussels. They are a very important part
of the ecosystem, and it is not unusual to find middens of empty shells along
waterways where muskrats gather them, place them in a pile, and feast on them
as soon as they start to open up from being out of their water environment.)
**On
Friday afternoon, Brian Stone visited Barbara Smith in Riverview to check out a
nest of yellowjacket wasps that were extremely active
underneath a decorative bush in her front yard. It appeared that the wasps
might have made an opening in the side of the bush to give access to the nest
they built on (and maybe under) the ground beneath the bush. Brian took a few
still photos and a video of the wasps entering the hole in the bush, as well as
one photo of a pair of wasps leaving the nest carrying something. There
appeared to be a large gray mass under the bush that Brian assumes is the
surface of the nest.
He
also photographed a paper wasp that seems to have parasites underneath
its abdominal scales, and a bee on a dandelion flower.
(Editor’s
note: This is a very active time of year for yellowjacket wasps. The population
within the nest is at its maximum, and they can be very aggressive if disturbed.
The
colony will now be producing new fertile queens and males, which leave the
colony to mate. After mating, the males die, and only the fertilized queens
overwinter, seeking protected areas to emerge the following spring and form a
new nest and colony. All the workers that we are seeing now will be off to
heaven after the first few killing frosts.
The
beautiful, detailed photos of the paper wasp that Brian took are savers for
future identification. The paper wasp would not be associated with the colony
Brian photographed, and does not show the aggressive tendency of the
yellowjacket wasps.)
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
