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Index of Subjects I was on Heather's walk and we also had a lovely day with wonderful sightings. She took us to an access point to the Salmon River just beyond the Valley bottling plant. We took a little track through woods along a stream before reaching our ultimate destination; the site of masses of the very rare (in Nova Scotia) Primula mistassinica. These clung to a vertical sandstone cliff face, and were tucked into crevices on the winding north bank of the Salmon River - all in full bloom. Great timing Heather! We also saw lots of other neat stuff here and back at the intervale where we entered. Masses of blooming white and blue violets, cuckoo flowers, lovely large patch of blooming toothwort, nodding trillium just about to bloom, scouring rush (both E hyemale at roadside and E scirpoides in the woods), much herb-robert foliage, as well as the usual canada mayflower, starflower, gold thread etc. and many different fern species. Pics were taken by others for further identification so hopefully that will be forthcoming. Also a couple of carcasses - one certainly a coyote and another perhaps a ruffed grouse. ----Original Message Follows---- From: Jim Wolford <jimwolford@eastlink.ca> Reply-To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca To: NatureNS <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca> CC: Ross & Linda Hall <ross.hall@ns.sympatico.ca>, Claire Diggins <claire_diggins@hotmail.com> Subject: [NatureNS] report on NNS/FNSN a.g.m. & field trip at Bible Hill, June 3/07 Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:48:05 -0300 June 3, 2007 - NATURE NOVA SCOTIA (aka FED. N.S. NATURALISTS) ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ETC. IN TRURO, at N.S. Community College. On my drive there, just west of the Highway 101 Falmouth exit, 3 WHITE-TAILED DEER together crossed the highway safely, not all at once, at 8:20 a.m. FNSN/NNS Field Trips in afternoon (after a.g.m.) at Bible Hill: Beautiful sunny and warm day, but strangely no black flies and very few mosquitoes. Heather Drope took about 8 people? on a plants walk somewhere, while I elected to go with about 8 birders with Linda Ross. We started in the rock garden on the N.S. Agric. College campus, where Linda hoped we might see the resident and very rare pair of GRAY PARTRIDGES. Well, indeed we lucked out and found them walking together along the bank of the Salmon River just east? of the rock garden and steam plant -- Linda told us that a recent check by herself and Ross Hall of the steam plant chimney at dusk turned up only 4 CHIMNEY SWIFTS. After the campus, Linda led us to a portion of the Cobequid Trail system, about 2 km. east of the NSAC campus. This trail along the bank of the Salmon River is really nice and quiet (re human noises) and wanders through nice mixed forest. Other ³birders² on this walk were Linda Hall, Bob McDonald, Wayne Neily, Doug Linzey, Jeannie Gibson Collins, David and Janie Hughes. Other people should list our BIRDS seen or heard, but there were hummingbirds, golden-crowned kinglets, blue-headed and red-eyed vireos, black-throated green warblers, magnolia warbler, 2 male BLACKPOLL WARBLERS, CEDAR WAXWINGS (common), robins, pheasants, alder flycatcher (WN), an old bald eagle nest on top of the river bank. An interesting sighting was a RED SQUIRREL that crossed the path with something long and white that turned out to be a hip-BONE perhaps of a young deer -- the bone showed old gnawed surfaces (source of calcium for various rodents or perhaps deer? and ??. Along this trail we spent lots of time slowly observing PLANTS that were in bloom: especially DWARF GINSENG (Panax trifolium) was fairly common and just beginning to bloom; TROUT LILY and PAINTED TRILLIUM were abundant (trillia?), ROSY TWISTED STALK was common; also in bloom were GOLDTHREAD, CLINTONIA or BLUE-BEAD LILY, RED ELDERBERRY, PIN CHERRY, and a species of BLUE VIOLET; STARFLOWER just starting to bloom; nearly in bloom were WILD LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY and FALSE SOLOMON¹S SEAL. LEPIDOPTERANS seen on our birding walk: lots of WHITES, presumably mostly or all CABBAGE WHITES, plus one RED ADMIRAL that was intact but with faded colours, and cooperative COMMA butterfly that landed on a tree-trunk beside the trail and sat there for a long time, mostly closed up. After the walk, I checked in Kaufman¹s focus guide for butterflies plus the Payzants¹ checklist for N.S., and I have concluded from the silvery mark on its hindwings plus the fact that two kinds of commas are unlikely in N.S., that our individual was very probably a GREEN COMMA. It was definitely NOT a question mark, which is a close relative of the commas. ---------------- Cheers from Jim in Wolfville _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Hotmail, with safety bar colour coding, helps identify suspicious mail before it takes your daughter out on a date. Upgrade today for a better look. www.newhotmail.ca?icid=WLHMENCA152
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