Nature Moncton Nature
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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.
The action in the
peregrine falcon box on the summit of Assumption Place has now become nonstop,
with two very busy parents tending to the insatiable appetites of four
teenagers.
Https://www.zoodemagnetichillzoo.ca/nest-cam
**Jane LeBlanc in St.
Martins had a silver-bordered fritillary butterfly show up in her yard,
trying hard to pollinate her blueberry shrubs in a strong wind. She also saw a
Canadian tiger swallowtail butterfly, but it did not stop for photos. She is
waiting for the first monarch butterfly of the year to arrive.
**Shannon Inman captured a
very cooperative portrait of an eastern kingbird.
Shannon’s camera also took
note of just how beautiful all those cherry blossoms appear at the moment. Take a moment to look closely!
**”Mobbing” is a very
common reaction in the bird community to a perceived predator.
Pat Gibbs comments on
Thursday afternoon, she noticed a crow landing on the
snag Pat had set up on her lawn. Two things struck her. The crow's mouth
was open for the entire 5 minutes it was there. It never closed its mouth once, not
even for a second. At first, Pat thought it odd, but when the blue jays
arrived, she realized the crow may have been screaming at them the whole time even though she could not hear it from inside the house. After they arrived, the blue jays started dive bombing the crow. For 5 solid minutes, the crow just sat
there and ducked and screeched at them. Why would a big bird like a crow
be afraid of little birds like blue jays? Why wouldn't a crow simply
attack them?
Pat has included several photos that she thought might give some sense of the action. You can see that the crow never leaves that perch, which is exposed from all sides. It just sits there and lets them attack him. Pat thought it was strange. Or is this normal and, if so, given their relative sizes, why?
(Editor’s note: Pat’s tale
shows the value of mobbing. I expect one or two blue jays may have had a very
different experience; however, a mob of them is much more effective in showing
their displeasure and getting away with it. Crows do more than their share of
mobbing other species, but blue jays know very well that crows enjoy eating
their eggs, and a few crows would not hesitate to attack a blue jay and kill it.)
**Brian Coyle had a chestnut-sided
warbler visiting his yard on Thursday and was able to capture a video with
clear audio of the vocalization. This is well worth listening to several times
to capture the pattern of this not-so-easy-to-differentiate warbler vocalization.
Check out the video audio
below:
A very well-dressed rose-breasted grosbeak also cooperated for a portrait in Brian Coyle’s backyard, showing off its bright red kerchief to highlight its black-and-white plumage.
**On Wednesday, Brian
Stone went to the back end of the White Rock Recreational Area in Hillsborough
to specifically look for the two rare butterflies that seem to like that area
and appear at this time every year. He walked the road and trails and saw many dreamy
duskywing skippers hanging out in and near a large muddy puddle on the dirt
road. He also photographed a yellow clouded sulphur butterfly, a northern
azure butterfly, a bright green six-spotted tiger beetle, a hover
fly (that wasn't hovering), a four-spotted skimmer dragonfly, and a
tiny nomad bee that was pollinating the dandelions.
After an enjoyable
walk around the area for about two hours, Brian decided to head out to other
areas, but as he walked past the large puddle on the road one last time, he
noticed the tiny blue flicker of a little blue butterfly heading towards a dark
lump on the ground beside the puddle. Upon closer inspection, Brian saw that it
was one of his intended targets, the western tailed-blue butterfly. It
had found a small, dark lump of some critter's scat and was enjoying
whatever it was about scat that butterflies love. Then Brian noticed that
one of the two species of skippers that was also enjoying the scat beside the
blue was his other target, the northern cloudywing skipper. A couple of
them had found the little delicious lump also and were right beside the western
tailed blue, along with a couple of dreamy duskywing skippers too. What a nice
little gathering of small but special butterflies.
Before making it to his
car, Brian had another encounter with a large porcupine, but instead of
chasing Brian this time, it just turned and walked away, ignoring him. Nothing
like being ignored to make a photographer feel unwanted, but Brian took a
picture of its retreating backside anyway, just because.
(Editor’s note: Look closely at Brian’s photos of the western tailed-blue butterfly and the northern cloudywing skipper. These are not commonly found butterflies in New Brunswick, but undoubtedly more specific sites will be found just as this site was found accidentally on a Nature Moncton field trip and has produced these two species every year since.)
**The New Brunswick
Environmental Network publishes a bimonthly newsletter, and a portion of that
newsletter that just came out deals with something that is becoming very
important to us all as naturalists: ticks. The NBEN feature is copied below,
and I hope everyone will take the time to carefully read the suggested
articles.
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**This Week’s Sky at a
Glance, 2026 June 6 – June 13
Globular clusters are among the oldest and largest objects associated with our
galaxy, with some being about 12 billion years old and containing tens to
hundreds of thousands of stars packed into a compact sphere. There are more
than 150 globulars orbiting in the halo of the Milky Way galaxy, and many more
are known to be orbiting larger galaxies like M31 in Andromeda. Many can be
seen in binoculars as a fuzzy patch of light, perhaps resembling those little
white patches you see below bird feeders. A medium size telescope is able to
resolve some of their stars. The larger globulars as seen from a dark location
have been described as looking like granules of sugar against black velvet.
Summer is the season for observing globular clusters. M4 is just to the right
of Antares in the constellation Scorpius and it is one of the closest globulars
at 7000 light years. M13 in the Keystone of Hercules is relatively close at
25,000 light years. One that would outshine M13 if it were higher in our sky is
M22, just left of the lid of the Teapot in Sagittarius. Another easy target is
M3, located halfway between Arcturus and Cor Caroli, the brightest star in the
small constellation Canes Venatici below the handle of the Big Dipper. Two
other standouts are M92 in Hercules and M5 in Serpens.
From a dark sky, many dimmer globulars can be picked out in the region of
Sagittarius and Ophiuchus. The concentration of globular clusters in this
region of sky is not by accident, and it played a role in another lesson of
humility for humanity. Harvard’s Harlow Shapley studied globular clusters a
century ago and noticed that most were located around Sagittarius. If they were
evenly distributed around the core of our galaxy, as believed, then the centre
of the galaxy must lie in that direction. Just as Copernicus and Galileo
demoted Earth from the centre of the solar system, Shapley showed that the Sun
was not at the centre of the Milky Way.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 5:29 and sunset will occur at 9:06, giving
15 hours, 37 minutes of daylight (5:37 and 9:08 in Saint John). Next Saturday
the Sun will rise at 5:27 and set at 9:11, giving 15 hours, 44 minutes of
daylight (5:35 and 9:12 in Saint John).
The Moon is at third quarter on Monday, rising at 1:36 am and setting at
1:26 pm. It is above Saturn Wednesday morning and Mars on Friday. A scenic
conjunction of the two brightest planets is underway as Venus slides over
Jupiter early in the week, coming as close as three Moon-widths. (Actually,
Jupiter is nearly five times farther from us than is Venus.) They remain within
a binocular view all week. Mercury moves to with a fist-width of Jupiter by the
end of the week. On Tuesday telescope users might see the shadow of
Jupiter’s moon Callisto join that of Europa on the planet’s atmosphere at 10:24
pm, a double shadow transit lasting until after Jupiter sets.
The Saint John Astronomy Club meets in the Rockwood Park Interpretation Centre
this Saturday at 7 pm. Tune in to the Sunday Night Astronomy Show at 8 pm on
the YouTube channel and Facebook page of Astronomy by the Bay. The Fredericton
Astronomy Club meets in the UNB Forestry-Earth Sciences building on Tuesday at
7 pm.
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
