Nature Moncton Nature News: April 17 2018

NATURE MONCTON INFORMATION LINE, April 17, 2018 ( Tuesday )

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Edited by: Nelson Poirier nelson@nb.sympatico.ca

Transcript by: Brian Stone bjpstone@gmail.com

Info Line # 506-384-6397 (384-NEWS)

** It's last call tonight, Tuesday night, for the Nature Moncton meeting at 7:00 pm at the Rotary Pavillion Lodge across from the former Cabela's location. Note that the starting time is 7:00, not 8:00 as was incorrectly placed in the website announcement. The write up is attached. In the second half of the meeting Shirley Xu will give a short presentation on birds encountered on a visit to China and other members to share their items of interest.

Nature Moncton April Meeting

Grand Lake Meadows Natural Protected Area

Date: April 17, 2018 at 7:00 PM

Mapleton Park Rotary Lodge (across from former Cabela’s)

Speaker: Gart Bishop

The unique wetlands along the Trans Canada Highway between Jemseg and Upper Gagetown are part of the Grand Lake Meadows. A portion of these wetlands is protected as Grand Lake Protected Natural Area. It is home to a collection of species which are not found elsewhere in the province. Gart Bishop will describe some of these species -- including New Brunswick’s smallest vascular plant -- that make this area so different from other wetlands.

Gart has also agreed to lead a Nature Moncton Field trip this summer to this special area to see in real time many of the species mentioned in his presentation that can be found in this unusual community and that have led to protection of the area. These species will all be emerging and appearing over the next months.

** Jean Paul Leblanc was quick to followup yesterdays edition concerning a TREE SWALLOW [Hirondelle bicolore] they had one arrive to their Bouctouche yard on Monday morning. I suspect that this is the beginning of a major onslaught of this usually first of the Swallow clan to return. I hope that the sudden weather event is only a temporary inconvenience for the new arrivals.

** Gordon Rattray visited the Memramcook Arthur St. lagoon on Monday. The male CANVASBACK [Fuligule à dos blanc] that has been there was off and elsewhere as it frequently has been. There was a SCAUP and a pair of NORTHERN SHOVELER [Canard souchet] ducks on the lagoon. Gordon got a nice photo of the male RUDDY DUCK [Érismature rousse] that has been seen there. Gordon moved on to the Sackville Waterfowl Park to see a female AMERICAN KESTREL [Crécerelle d'Amérique] on power lines en route.

The prominent species in the Sackville Waterfowl Park were AMERICAN WIGEON [Canard d'Amérique] and GADWALL [Canard chipeau]. He got a nice photo of each gender of Wigeon, and a photo of a Gadwall pair that nicely shows the gender differences.

** Sterling Marsh was driving on the Immigrant Rd. just before Cape Tormentine on Monday when he came across two TURKEY VULTURES [Urubu à tête rouge] partaking of a ripened road kill Raccoon lunch. It almost appeared that one was on guard while the other dined.

** Mac Wilmot comments that it was a great day when you can look out your dining room window and photograph a spring dressed, male WOOD DUCK [Canard branchu] as happened to him in his Lower Coverdale yard on Monday. Mac also had a brief visit from a PINE WARBLER [Paruline des pins] to his suet feeder but it was quickly crowded out by HAIRY WOODPECKERS [Pic chevelu] before he could capture a photo.

** Lois Budd had a DARK-EYED JUNCO [Junco ardoisé] arrive to her Salisbury feeder yard on Monday that was sporting a very white tail. This is a partial albino bird. Note the millet sprays that Lois uses at her feeder which she comments are Sparrow magnets.

** There surely has not been an invasion of Bohemian Waxwings this season. It was therefore a surprise for Clarence Cormier to have a flock of approximately two hundred BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS [Jaseur boréal] arrive around his Grande Digue site on Monday. He has had small groups of Cedar Waxwings popping in all winter. He also had a hundred plus blackbirds that were a combination of adult male RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS [Carouge à épaulettes], some first summer male Red-winged Blackbirds now, and COMMON GRACKLES [Quiscale bronzé] as well that included some females. Also two BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS [Vacher à tête brune] were present on Monday and two FOX SPARROWS [Bruant fauve].

** Ethel Douglas visited the Sackville Waterfowl Park on April 11 to see AMERICAN WIGEONS [Canard d'Amérique], GADWALLS [Canard chipeau], MALLARDS [Canard colvert], CANADA GEESE [Bernaches du Canada] and several RING-BILLED GULLS [Goéland à bec cerclé]. Ethel comments that she had a male RING-NECKED PHEASANT [Faisan de Colchide] outside her Royal Oaks condo window on Saturday. The males have become very bold, if not careless, at this time of year.

** Jan Tingley reports activity that she saw on Sunday morning around the first pond at the bottom of the hill in Hillsborough. She saw a pair of RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS [Harle huppé] swimming around and a TREE SWALLOW [Hirondelle bicolore] on a hydro wire. This may have been the same bird that Jamie and Karen Burris photographed at that spot on Sunday. Red-breasted Mergansers are not normally expected in a fresh water pond, which I assume this pond is. Jan notes that the ice is still in the lower ponds. She also comments that there are a number of RING-NECKED PHEASANTS [Faisan de Colchide] chasing each other about in the fields behind East Riverview.

** In an earlier edition it was mentioned that few, if any, Scaup were noted on the Kennebecasis River along the Norton Shore Rd. on a visit there on April 09 but that Joanne Savage reported significant numbers there three weeks earlier so I had assumed that they had come and gone. However Joanne and David Putt did that same run on April 16 to find that there were approximately ten thousand SCAUP, so it would appear that the migration is far from over but is moving through in waves as many of our migrating seabirds do. Joanne comments that it was an impressive show with the sheer number of birds present.

** Recently Brian Stone submitted a photo of a mass of reddish, pea sized bodies on the bark of a tree at the Irving Arboretum in Bouctouche. I had no idea what they were, but curiosity killed the cat and so I had to go see it. It turned out to be an elderly American Basswood tree, aka American Linden. It turns out that the large branch had been severely split from the tree and when this happens with some trees, especially Basswood, it releases the growth of buds which are under the bark to emerge as a survival technique with the buds developing into new, young branches that were evident when looking further up the branch as more photos attached show.

The Basswood is very difficult to grow from seed but a cut stump will send up shoots called coppicing as other hardwood trees will do as well. The scenario described is another way the Basswood is able to self propagate and survive without seed propagation.

Dan Hicks, an arborist with the City of Moncton, recognized what was going on from the series of photos and gave some reliable Google sites to interpret the scenario.