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June 5, 2007 - Jim Perkin reported that, in Wolfville, sometime in the past week, he and Dorothy Perkin had seen a bird that was very probably or certainly a NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD (well described and picked out of a field guide by Dorothy, who is a long-time residential bird observer). The location was a new house off Cherry Lane, not far from the railroad tracks. June 6, 2007 - Ron Rafuse reports that an apparent MERLIN (he called it a ³chicken hawk² attracted some attention in downtown Wolfville this morning at Joeıs Food Emporium. It was first on a power line, and then flew/dove after a small bird, probably a house sparrow, into some very low bushes adjacent to the front of Joeıs restaurant. Ron also reports that, earlier in the Spring at Joe's restaurant, he found BLUE JAYS again had made a nest and laid eggs in one of the two very small juniper bushes next to the restaurant entrance. He took the eggs out and destroyed them (for the good of the blue jays, since it is almost impossible to successfully fledge young from this location, AND now this year there is a new outdoor dining/drinking deck there, too). Later I also took out the nest, and the jays have not been back. So far MERLINS have made only about three appearances at the swiftsı chimney at dusk this year, and twice they were just fly-bys, to or from the dykelands to the north. And I donıt think anyone really knows where they are nesting in town this year. This evening at 7 p.m. at the Irving Centre in Wolfville, Richard Stern saw and heard 2 MERLINS together flying from west to east. For the Maritime Breeding Bird Atlas (my square) he deemed them a ³pair in breeding habitat². Along one of the trails in the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens, several people on a tour, including myself, saw a fresh-looking RED ADMIRAL butterfly. The tour above involved the Valley Photo Club, about 20 people including Walter Isenor and his son Jeff, Richard Stern, and Rick Penney and David ? from Camera Corner in New Minas. We took about an hour for a leisurely stroll through the botanical gardens, led by Melanie Priesnitz and myself. PLANTS IN BLOOM in Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens: indoors in Conservatory first were sheep laurel or lambkill, partridgeberry, and pitcher-plant; outside in gardens were wild calla (aquatic), yellow pond lily or cow lily, low-bush blueberry, wild lily-of-the-valley (and later the garden species of lily-of-the-valley), bunchberry, pink ladyıs-slipper, yellow ladyıs-slipper, false Solomonıs-seal (and later garden Solomonıs-seal), Clintonia or blue-bead lily, foxberry or lingonberry, 3-toothed cinquefoil, marsh marigold (only one flower left), blue violet, pussy-toes, choke cherry, chokeberry, buttercup sp., bugle (a ³weed²), forget-me-not, bog laurel, Labrador tea (almost in bloom), bog rosemary (almost in bloom), red columbine, roseroot, common dandelion, yellow rocket, water or purple avens, yellow avens, cuckoo-flower, English hawthorn, red osier dogwood, wild strawberry, foamflower or false miterwort, yellow pond lily. PLANTS FRUITING included willow sp., purple trillium, coltsfoot, many others not listed. HERB/MEDICINAL GARDENS: common comfrey in bloom, etc. NON-FLOWERS NOTED: cinnamon fern, maidenhair fern, ferns on big granite rock inside conservatory, field horsetail. June 7, 2007 - MOUNTAIN ASH in bloom in Wolfville -- same for ³SORBARIA²?, a hybrid between mountain ash and a viburnum species? (check this with Sam Van der Kloet. Thereıs a ³Sorbaria² tree at the northeast corner of the Wolfville post office, and there used to be another one just west of the Acadia Biology Building (now gone from construction zone for new Biology Bldg.). June 9, 2007 - WHITE CAMPION in bloom in Wolfville near home. In the same spot a large group of flowering YELLOW ROCKET had NO HONEY BEES NOR OTHER BEES -- I only saw a couple of kinds of HOVER FLIES there. There is a lot of concern right now about how honey bees (and bumble bees and other bees?) are doing in Nova Scotia, and I havenıt been looking lately. Back in earlier Spring when the crocuses were in bloom, there seemed to be a lot of HONEY BEES then. 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> ---------------------- ³The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.² - Ellen Parr ---------------------- ³...... the Earth .....belongs as much to those who come after us as to us; 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 ----------------------
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