Nature Moncton Nature
News
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**The camera on the peregrine
falcon nest box on the summit of Assumption Place is now live. When
checking the link to watch the activity, scroll down to the first large image,
which shows what is happening in real time.
Everything seemed quite
quiet in the nest box on Saturday, with incubation happening. The male was
taking his turn in the photo below on Saturday evening. Note the clear circular
nares on the left side to distinguish the male. It is also smaller than the
female and occupies less space in the nest box. Immediately after this photo was
taken, the female arrived and took over.
**John Inman comments that
the overwintering rusty blackbirds he has had seem to have left to establish
breeding territories.
The resident red-tailed
hawk has not been here in a week; something happened to it, or it migrated late.
Shannon Inman spotted three cecropia moth
cocoons of the same size, photographing one against a measure.
(Editor’s note: Rheal Vienneau points out some very significant features to distinguish the unique cocoons of the cecropia moth from polyphemus and luna cocoons. Quoting Rheal below:
“The basic
points are as follows:
-The size -- (good 2” or
more); polyphemus and luna would be half this size
- the shape -- ( woven
tent-like) as opposed to the rounded and oval shape of polyphemus and luna
cocoons.
- distinct valve at the
vertical top of this cocoon (no valve on the polyphemus and valve very
difficult to see on the luna.)"
A bright chipping
sparrow has arrived in their Harvey yard.
**Katie Girvan was going
to clean out her Nature Moncton nest boxes in her yard. Katie always knocks on
them with the drill, in case anything might be in there, and nothing made a
sound. So, she opened it up and went to take out the old nesting material, and
she thought something moved, but then nothing else happened. When she went to
pull out the nesting material, all of a sudden a flying squirrel popped
its head out of the hole of the nest box. He went around the side of the
mountain ash tree that the box was attached to, and then glided toward one of the
other trees in her front yard. Katie watched it climb very fast up the tree,
and then took out her phone in case he went to fly away. The squirrel leapt
from the tree and glided to one of the pine trees lining the sides of her yard.
She managed to get a quick documentary video of its jump with the video link
attached below:
Brian Stone was planning a
photo session with the newly waxing, slim crescent Moon on Saturday at
sunset while it was close to the bright planet Venus, but he got
distracted by that enticing modern wonder called television and nearly missed
it. If Cathy Simon hadn't alerted him to the spectacle, he would have
blissfully gone on missing it and would have had a regretful Sunday
morning when realization set in. As it was, he barely made it as the scene was
setting quickly, and he got one quick photo before the pair vanished below the
tree line. If anyone happened to be driving along the west end of Mountain Rd at that time, and saw a crazy man jogging along the sidewalk in his pajamas
carrying a camera on a tripod, looking for a spot with a view through the trees,
don't worry ... you weren't seeing things.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
