Nature Moncton Nature
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**Don MacAuley captured a
photo of a red-tailed hawk with a duck as prey. It stayed in the area of Blue
Heron condominiums at Rabbit Brook in Moncton for two days, feeding on its prey.
The duck is suspected to be a mallard duck.
**The striking male
painted bunting that is overwintering at a Bayfield feeder yard has garnered a
great deal of attention.
Barbara Smith brings attention to an interesting article on the CBC website recently about this colourful bird. Check out the website below:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/painted-bunting-rare-bird-in-bayfield-nb-9.7028376
**On Boxing Day, Dale Pugh
was in Irishtown Park and heard crows mobbing what she assumed was a hawk. When the clamour didn’t subside, she walked
to investigate and was surprised to see a beautiful great horned owl! Her camera battery was flashing red, so she
was happy to capture a few quick shots before the battery died.
On Saturday, she travelled to Bayfield in
hopes of seeing the painted bunting.
She observed the following from 8:30 am until noon: the bird didn’t visit any of the available
feeders in the yard but instead seemed to stay mostly hunkered in the shelter,
which Alain Clavette and the homeowner had built the day before. It seems there was food inside the
shelter. The bunting emerged once and
perched in bushes next to the shelter for three minutes (photo op!), and it was
observed flying across the yard to taller trees and returned not long after to
the shelter.
.
**Jane and Ed LeBlanc took
a road trip from St. Martins to Bayfield, to see the painted bunting.
They were not disappointed. They stopped at the Tantramar marsh on the way home,
but were obviously on the wrong side as they missed the golden eagle.
**Shannon Inman’s photo of
the moth winter cocoon that ran yesterday was incorrectly labelled.
Rheal Vienneau points out
that it was the cocoon (winter pupa) of a cecropia moth, not a polyphemus moth
as labelled. Rheal has provided a photo of both cocoons for comparison and
points out how to differentiate the two.
Rheal comments, “As seen
in his photo, there are two major distinguishing features:
The cecropia moth is much larger, double the
size of the polyphemus. Also, the cecropia is pointed in at least one end (the
emerging valve).
The polyphemus is smaller, is rounded at both
ends, and has no emerging valve.”
Rheal also comments that it is
very likely a year-old cocoon as it is very pale and weathered compared to his dark
cecropia cocoon from this year.
**Jamie Burris captured a
photo of a male cardinal in the red fall leaves of the sumac tree, taking the
term cryptic to its maximum. If you zoom in on the very center of Jamie’s photo,
you will see a male northern cardinal facing left!
**Frank Branch had his first
visit of a sharp-shinned hawk this winter, which very promptly took a
blue jay as prey.
On December 24, an American goshawk made a
slow pass through his yard; hoping Frank gets a photo opportunity. We don’t often get many photos of American Goshawks.
**Shannon Inman noticed a skunk
eating apples, and the left side of its face appeared to have a pathological lesion. Sarcoptic mange would have to be considered a possibility.
Shannon also photographed
a ball of horsehair lichen very high in the tree cuddled up to smaller Usnea
(old man’s beard lichen). It has the look of a nest at first glance!
Kendra Driscoll at the NB
Museum felt the actual species was most likely Bryoria furcellata (Burred
Horsehair) based on the colour and shape of it.
John Inman notes that his regular red-tailed hawk drops by every couple of days for its meat handout. The six rusty blackbirds and three red-winged blackbirds seem to be
hunkering in for the winter. John has noticed a couple of common redpolls
come to the birch catkins in his Harvey yard, but not to the feeders yet. John
got a quick photo of the tail end of a rough- legged hawk as it
went over his home.
**Nelson Poirier has not
had evening grosbeaks at his urban feeder yard since moving into
Moncton. It was a pleasant surprise to see a flock of seven coming and going on
Sunday. Surprisingly, they were all female.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
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