Nature Moncton Nature
News
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**Brian Stone taped Roland Chiasson's excellent presentation at the Nature Moncton meeting on Tuesday night.
If you were not able to attend, listen to it at the link below. You will hear a
lot of information about crow and raven behavior you may not have realized.
**Deanna Fenwick took a
walk at the Sackville Waterfowl Park and retention ponds to see what species
are still hanging around. A great blue heron flew off before she could snap a
photo, but she was pleased to find a Wilson's snipe still poking around the
edge of the retention pond. Several mallard ducks, one female hooded merganser, and a green-winged teal were there.
At the Waterfowl Park, many gadwalls, American wigeons, and mallard ducks were present.
One pied-billed grebe was still fishing, and a few red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, and chickadees were present.
Across the highway at the
pond by the high school, several Canada geese and some ring-necked ducks
were far out in the middle of the pond.
**Marbeth Wilson sleuthed
the Botsford/Upper Cape area near Tormentine on Wednesday to find some very
pleasant surprises. She captured a great photo of a male Eastern towhee.
She also heard one blue-gray gnatcatcher, then
more. At least three flitted about in the alders by the side of the road in
Botsford, close to Cape Tormentine.
She also photographed a common
yellowthroat warbler and commented that it may be the last time she will
see this species, as they may be in migration mode at this point.
**Tenacious might be a good word to describe a tree Barbara Smith and her husband saw at Mill Creek Nature Park in Riverview this week. The tree was perched atop a boulder, its exposed roots hanging on for dear life.
The park also had lots of lush
green moss carpeting the slopes beside the gravel paths.
**Brian Stone looked out
his kitchen window on Wednesday morning and noticed a cloud of tiny white
flying things hovering around the yard. It was woolly alder aphid day!
He made a short video from the window showing them flying around; if you look
closely, you can see the tiny white dots moving about. He then went outside and
encouraged a few to land on his hand for some cell phone photos.
(Editor’s note: On a warmish fall day, tiny flying woolly aphids can be so numerous they look
like snowflakes. They're on a mating mission to lay eggs that overwinter and start new colonies again next season.)
Nelson Poirier
Nature Moncton
