[NatureNS] 40+ MIDDLETON chimney swifts + specimen + wasp sting + flying ants

Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 01:35:28 -0300
From: Jim Wolford <jimwolford@eastlink.ca>
To: NatureNS <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>,
Cc: Wolfville Tourist Bureau <tourism@town.wolfville.ns.ca>
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Aug. 3, 2006 - In Wolfville in early afternoon, I was leaving the Bank of
Montreal and had only gotten a few steps away when some sort of WASP,
unseen, painfully STUNG ME in the wrist and then somehow got away before I
could see the culprit.  [This evening as I write this my wrist is quite
swollen and a bit painful.]  I suspect either some sort of YELLOW JACKET or
HORNET (Vespula), or, perhaps more likely, a PAPER WASP (Polistes).

Another insect observation today was of WINGED ANTS in Wolfville and also in
Middleton.

I drove to MIDDLETON and arrived at dusk to survey the CHIMNEY SWIFTS there,
in lieu of any recent reports from there?  I arrived at 8:45 p.m. (Sunset
time 8:52), and two parties of observers there had started watching at about
8:30.    Perhaps 15 swifts were circling when I arrived.  ABOUT 40+
MIDDLETON CHIMNEY SWIFTS were seen to enter the chimney gradually, from 8:50
to 9:10, with peak descents at 8:56, when 20 entered quickly.  By a bit
after 9:10 it became too dark to see any more descents, but I would not be
surprised if there were at least a few more swifts that entered later.  Sky
clear, very little wind, temperature 20 C.  Observer Jim Wolford.

Still regarding CHIMNEY SWIFTS, a woman in one of the cars mentioned that
she had a single dead SPECIMEN in good condition at home in a freezer; it
had been found in her fireplace; I neglected to ask her where she lived or
when it had been found, but I gave her my name and phone number, as well as
the phone number for Acadia Univ. Biology, so that the latter can get the
specimen when she gets to Wolfville.

Cheers from Jim in Wolfville, 542-9204
---------------------
Jim (James W.) Wolford
91 Wickwire Avenue 
Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
B4P 1W3
phone (902)542-9204 (home)
fax (902)585-1059 (Acadia Univ. Biology Dept.)
e-mail <jimwolford@eastlink.ca>
----------------------
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and we have no right, by anything that we do, or neglect to do, to involve
them in unnecessary penalties, or to deprive them of benefits which are
theirs by right.²  - John Ruskin
----------------------
³There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.² -- Mark
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