Monarch Migration Festival 2010

On Sunday September 19th we had our 10th annual Monarch Butterfly Migration Festival and we’re happy to report that it was a great success!












We would like to thank everyone involved for making the day run so smoothly, from the vendors to the volunteers. We couldn’t have done it without you!












The less than perfect weather didn’t seem to keep anybody home either…we had just over 1000 people down at the Visitor’s Centre throughout the day!





And when the sun finally decided to show it’s face, the guided butterfly hikes spotted 6 species of butterflies including Monarchs, Painted Ladies, Cresents, Sulfurs, Cabbage Whites and a Black Swallowtail.



Dale and Laura are the two people who really made it all happen!





Another creature we were delighted to see that day was a Blanding’s turtle hatchling. Back in June when these turtles leave the water to dig their nests, we noticed a large female looking quite interested in the gravely soil around our parking lot. Luckily the nest wasn’t predated by raccoons or skunks during the summer and we have seen 2 hatchlings so far.



Blanding’s turtles have a black, highly-domed carapace (upper shell) with yellowish spots or streaks. The plastron (bottom shell) is yellow with black markings. The tell-tale sign of Blanding’s turtles is their bright yellow throat and notched upper jaw which gives them a permanent “smile”. Adult Blanding’s turtles have a hinged shell, which allows them to close their shell tightly when predators come knocking.

Unfortunately Blanding’s turtles are listed as a threatened species in Ontario due to loss of wetland habitat and road mortalities. So if you are lucky enough to see one of these little turtles wandering around on the road, give them a hand to the other side.

September 8, 2010

Hello Everyone!

Well, the summer season here at Rondeau has come to an end. The summer staff are making their way back to their respective universities as we speak, leaving Emily Slavik and I alone at the Visitor Centre. Although I have been working here at Rondeau for the past 4 years, I feel like I should introduce myself. My name is Laura Penner and I will be writing to you all while Kip is away at teacher’s college. I apologize for the late posting, but it took a few days to work out a fall schedule and figure out our staff availabilities.

Although the Visitor Centre may appear empty and quiet, we are still quite busy planning for school groups and the upcoming Monarch Migration Festival. I will also be putting the finishing touches on the new tracking display later this week so be sure to come check it out!

For anyone who will be coming to visit the park this month, you will notice that Rondeau Road is closed to vehicle traffic. Once the weather begins to cool down, our cold-blooded friends love to bask on the sun-warmed asphalt. It takes a really keen eye to tell the difference between a Ribbon snake and a small twig when you are driving along admiring the beautiful fall colours.

For those who have never had the chance to see a Ribbon snake, just picture a slender Eastern Garter snake. Ribbon snakes are dark brown or black and have three yellowish-white stripes that run down the length of their bodies. To tell the difference between these similar snakes look for the Ribbon snakes bright white lips and chin. There is a sharp boundary between the light coloured lips and the dark colour of the upper head (this boundary on a Garter snake is blurred and not so defined). Ribbon snakes will also have a small white or yellow spot just before the eyes.

These relatively small snakes prefer meadows or forest edges near permanent bodies of water such as marshes or lakes. They often feed in water, capturing frogs, small fish and some invertebrates. Unlike some other snake species who lay thin-shelled eggs, Ribbon snakes give birth to live young who are independent immediately after birth. Another feature Ribbons share with the Garter snake is the ability to secrete a musky liquid upon its tormentor…so think twice before you grab one for closer inspection.

Eastern Ribbon Snake





Attached you will find the schedule of programs for the month of September. Visitor Centre hours will be Friday to Sunday 10:00am – 4:00pm.

I hope to see you soon, and keep your eyes peeled for snakes on the road.

Laura

What’s on at Rondeau?

September 2010

Saturday September 11
Guided Hike – 10:30am at the Tulip Tree Trail
A Walk through Time
Time changes everything, even nature. Come see first-hand how time has changed Rondeau from a sandy beach to a lush forest.

Saturday September 18
Guided Hike – 10:30am at the Tulip Tree Trail
What’s in a Name
Why are we known as Carolinian Canada and the banana belt? Come learn all about this unique area and the creatures that live here.

Sunday September 19
10:00am – 4:00pm at the Visitor Centre
Monarch Migration Festival
The Monarchs are on the move. Join us for a day of butterfly hikes, tagging demonstrations, children’s crafts, local artisans, Adopt-a-Monarch program, a bbq and so much more!

Saturday September 25
Evening Program – 7:30pm at the Visitor Centre
Owl Prowl
Come learn how these amazingly adapted birds locate and hunt down their prey in complete darkness. We may even get to see one!

Sunday September 26
Guided Hike – 1:00pm at the Visitor Centre
Brilliant, Busy and Beautiful

Did you miss the Monarch Migration Festival? Come along on this hike to learn all about our most beautiful insects and their amazing life cycle.
*If you would like an electronic copy of Rondeau Events send an email to emily.slavik@ontario.ca*

Visitor Centre Hours:
Friday, Saturday and Sunday
10:00am – 4:00pm

Hello Everyone

This past week marks a couple of Monarch firsts for the 2010 season. As many of you know the end of August is the start of the Monarch season. If you’ve come by the Visitor Centre in the past couple of weeks you may have noticed that our Monarch tank has been in full swing with up to 15 caterpillars at one time. I’m happy to say that the first of the chrysalises has successfully hatched into a handsome male Monarch Butterfly. The other first was of course our first tagged butterfly at the park. The butterfly tags arrived this past Wednesday and we wasted no time. Emily Slavik had the honour of the first tag this year, by tagging a male while showing some visitors how and why we tag butterflies.

Tagged Monarch Butterfly

As much as I enjoy the Monarch season, it does bring a twinge of sadness. Monarch tagging means the summer is coming to a close. The days are noticeably shorter, the summer staff are starting to say their goodbyes and the summer is turning into a fond memory. But summer isn’t the only thing saying goodbye. As August leaves, so must I. I’m taking a leave of absence from Rondeau to go and spend the next 8 months away at Teacher’s College. I’ve had another amazing summer here at the park, met some great people, participated in some great programs and have made many wonderful memories to carry me through until I return next June. I like to say thank you to all the amazing visitors and the awesome staff the made this my best summer here.

Me saying good-bye from a tree

But I can’t say goodbye without giving one last creature feature that leaves a lingering impression. And nothing lingers like the sweet, delicate smell of skunk musk. Even their scientific name Mephitis mephitis pays homage to their fragrant nature by translating into “the smell, the smell”. Skunks get the reputation of spraying their stench at the slightest of provocation, but this is simply not true. It takes the skunk energy and time to refill depleted scent glands so the less they spray, the better for them. On top of that, they don’t like the smell any more than we do so they only use this mighty defensive weapon as a last resort.

Striped Skunk

Skunks will give you plenty of warning before spraying. The first thing they will do if you approach too closely is grunt and stomp their feet on the ground. This is skunk-ese for “don’t come any closer”. If you mistake the skunk’s meaning and continue to approach they will turn their body into a U-shape with both their head and rear end pointing at you. This means “GO AWAY NOW!!” Of course, if you don’t follow this blatant body language don’t be surprised if no one wants to come anywhere near you for the next few weeks. The mechanics of the spray are fascinating in their own right. There are two glands that each squirt out a stream of oily, yellow-green fluid. About a foot behind the skunk the two streams collide in mid-air and turn into a nauseating mist. When the skunk sprays, they are typically aiming for the assailant’s eyes. If the mist gets into your eyes it can cause burning blindness for 15-20 minutes, which is more than enough time for the skunk to make an escape.

Getting ready to spray

Don’t fear that your Rondeau Events update is at an end. Laura Penner is graciously taken over as writer in chief. I hope to see you all next summer. Until then, have a fabulous year.

Fragrantly Yours
Kip

Hello Everyone

It’s sad to think that the summer is coming to an end, but not everything about the end of summer is sad. All I’ve got to say is that the end of summer means BABY TURTLES!! Ryan Bolton, one of the researchers in the park has been incubating turtle eggs all summer and now they’ve started to hatch. Raccoons, skunks and other nest predators take a huge toll on the turtle nests in the park. The odds of an egg making it to adulthood are very low, less than 1%. Ryan’s work helps to give the turtles a better chance by at least getting them to the hatchling stage. Over the course of his work here, he has helped thousands of eggs hatch. But even with all his help, there are still turtle eggs that do it the natural way and hatch in the wild. If you are really lucky you’ll get to see some tiny turtles, the size of a twoonie, making their way across roads and down the beach to the water. So keep a wary eye out as you are driving around and if you see any give them a helping hand on their journey.

Ryan Bolton with baby Map Turtles

But baby turtles aren’t the only reptiles that made the Rondeau headlines this week. We also had a visit from Reptiles at Risk this past weekend. They taught our visitors about the many snakes and turtles that live within Ontario. And to top the whole thing off, everybody who wanted to, was able to hold a snake and discover for themselves what they really feel like. And let me tell you, the staff definitely took advantage of that experience because you don’t often get the chance to hold a Northern Water Snake.

Two snakes climbing a tree at the Reptiles at Risk Program

There is another treat at the end of the summer – fall flowers. When most people think about wildflowers it is usually Spring that springs to mind. But there really are some beauties that flower this time of year. One of my favourites is Blazing Star. For me, these plucky little flowers looks like little purple torches that are come hither signs for a lot of our butterfly species. Blazing star has several flowers along a tall flower spike. Unlike many other species with flower spikes, the flowers at the top bloom first and slowly move down the stem. In the middle of their blooming period you can have seeds forming at the top of the stem and flowers blooming at the bottom.

Monarch on Blazing Star

Buckeye on Blazing Star

Orange Sulfur on Blazing Star

Blazing Star isn’t considered an important food source for mammals like deer, but as far as humans are concerned it has a rich history in medicinal uses. The Native Americans used a tea from the roots to treat dysentery and applied the tea to the outside of their horses before a race, claiming that the treatment increased their speed and endurance. The European settlers used the tea as a diuretic and gargled it to help sore throats. In my opinion, the coolest common name this plant has ever had was Rattlesnake Master for its use as a poultice to treat snakebites.

Blazing Star

Field of Blazing Stars

Blazingly Yours
Kip

p.s. Although I didn’t mention it this week, our pond and waterfall in the bird garden are up and fully functional. I’d like to send out a big thank you to S. I. Water Gardens for all their help and donations.

Hello Everyone

I’ve decided to take up moonlighting as a carpenter. One of the unofficial goals here at the Visitor Centre is to create two new displays per summer. That way there is always something new to see and learn even if you visit every year. The first new (redesigned) display for this year is the bird/butterfly garden. I take absolutely no credit for the wonderful work that has been done. Most of the credit goes to Laura, Brady and Lauren, but all the staff have pitched in here and there. The newest addition to the garden is a tranquil waterfall that cascades serenely into the back of the pond. The sound of running water is very attractive to many species of birds and we’ve already had both American Goldfinches and Indigo Buntings bathing in the waterfall.

Bird Garden Waterfall

However, none of that explains my desire to moonlight as a carpenter. The second display we’ve decided to create is a new tracking display. Although there technically is already a tracking display, it was created quickly to see if it would be a popular display. The goal was always to build a special table to house the tracks, sand and interpretive information. Therefore I decided to try my hand at carpentry. With a fair amount of trepidation I went out and bought a bunch of wood and hid myself in the maintenance yard. After expecting to create something that looked a lot like a grade 3 craft project, I was pleasantly surprised with the results. There is still some sanding and painting to be done (aka covering up oopsies), and it’s never going to win a table beauty contest. All in all it’s looking pretty good and I hope to have it ready for the public in a week’s time.

Tracking Display Table

The other noteworthy occasion of the last week was the melodious music of Allison Lickley. The crowd at her concert on Saturday evening were treated to some beautiful original music and even sang along to some good campfire classics like Black Socks and The Other Day. More than one of us was reminded of a young Joni Mitchell as we listened to her sing. A big thank you to Allison for gracing us with her presence, to the Friend of Rondeau for bringing her in here and to the Grace Anglican Church for letting us hold the concert there.

Allison Lickley

Well I figured with all my ravings about carpentry I should keep the theme going and talk about every carpenter’s need – wood. Not just any wood either, but wood in the form of the highly prized Black Walnut tree. Nowadays, Black Walnut is highly prized for its beautiful grain. But it wasn’t always so, old trees (from the pioneer days) were very straight grained. Most of the Black Walnut back then was forest grown. In the shaded woods, the tree grew much slower and therefore had a denser straighter grain. Today Black Walnut is grown out in the open and it gets a much more varied grain. With the help of some skilled cutting, beautiful grain patterns are exposed that are ideal for woodworking.

Black Walnut

However, my favourite thing about walnut trees is that they partake in chemical warfare. Now you don’t have to worry about tear gas falling from their leaves, but if you are a neighbouring plant beware. Walnuts produce a colourless chemical called hydrojuglone. It is perfectly harmless until it is exposed to the air or oxidizing substances released by encroaching roots of nearby plants. Then it is quickly transformed into juglone. One of the most common effects of juglone is ‘walnut wilt’ where nearby plants will start to turn brown and wilt and eventually die – Black Walnut’s way of saying “go away, this is my space”. But never fear, some plants have found a way to fight back. Asters and goldenrods have joined in the chemical warfare battle by producing chemicals that are toxic to walnut seedlings and thereby ensuring their own continued health.

Walnut Wilt on Tomatoes

Cuttingly Yours
Kip

p.s. measure twice and cut once (I learned the hard way)

Hello Everyone

They say that gardening is a relaxing pursuit that lifts the spirit. After watching some of the staff work and toil at renovating our bird garden I’m not so sure it’s relaxing. But relaxing or not, it lifts the spirit to see all the great work they’ve been doing. The garden had become overgrown and some non-native species had invaded, so it was high time for a makeover. It might look a little bare right now with most of the plants removed, but with the bird feeders moved, the fence fixed and new paths added; we are just about ready for the replanting stage. And their work hasn’t deterred the birds one little bit. Just the other day a beautiful Indigo Bunting was seen checking out the new digs.

Rondeau Bird Garden

Indigo Bunting

Not only has this weekend brought in August, it has also heralded in our month of guest speakers. We kicked if off with a fabulous program done by WEEP (Wildlife Education and Environmental Program). Based out of the University of Guelph, WEEP helps to rehabilitate birds of prey. Birds that cannot be released back into the wild become part of their educational program and tour Ontario allowing people to see this fantastic birds up close and personal. Highlights included a Great Horned Owl named Einstein who liked to call at men with beards. She imprinted on a man who had a beard and now thinks she is a bearded man and calls to others of her ‘species’. Also present was Socrates the Turkey Vulture who had an unfortunate run in with a car. Although he broke a wing and couldn’t fly, he and was able to survive on road kill for a few days until he was found. Unfortunately, he lost the wing, but still enjoys the high life of touring around Ontario on one of the presenter’s arms.

Einstein the Owl

Socrates the Turkey Vulture

But don’t despair if you missed this great program because we’ve jam-packed the rest of the summer with guest speakers. Allison Lickley (musician), Joe Crowley (herpetile atlas of Ontario), Ryan Bolton (turtle researcher) and Andrew Cirtwill (musician) will be joining us over the next 31 days. If that isn’t enough for you, we are also hoping to get Dave Beadle to come back this year and “wow” us with the secret lives of moths. Keep an eye on our upcoming schedule to make sure you don’t miss these awesome events.

Since we just covered special guests that everyone wants to see (I hope), I figured I’d cover the other kind of guests – the one you’d prefer to stay away. And what better example of an annoying guest than the wasps that circles your picnic table. They are a few different types that bother us, but the most famous are probably the Bald-faced Hornets and the Yellowjackets.

Bald-faced Hornet


Yellowjacket

These species of wasps are colonial and build big nests either above or below ground. This in itself is a pretty impressive feat as the nest is built from scratch each year. The only wasps to survive the winter are the pregnant queen. When it warms up enough for her to come out of hibernation she starts looking around for suitable materials to start a new nest. Once she finds some wood she likes she’ll tear it off in strips, chew it up, mix it with her saliva and then spit it back out in the form of paper. She uses that first bit of paper to create a row of cells and she’ll lay a single egg into each one. In about 4-5 weeks those eggs will become worker females who will take over the jobs of building and enlarging the nest, collecting food and caring for the larva. The queen is relegated to an egg laying machine. By the end of the summer, there will be up to 400 wasps in a single nest. As the summer winds down two special types of eggs are laid, unfertilized eggs which will hatch into males and larger fertilized eggs that will hatch into future queens.

Bald-faced Hornet nest

Their unwanted guest status comes not when they are out foraging for food for the larva, but when they are out to feed themselves. The larva feed on animal food like caterpillars and flies that they paralyze with their stinger. In the spring and early summer, the adults feed on the same food, but as the summer progresses they feed more and more on nectar and sweet liquids like your can of pop which can lead to those unpleasant interactions we’d prefer to avoid. This switch in diet tends to correspond with the maturing of the males and new queens. Once this happens, the social structure of the nest starts to break down and the worker wasps spend more and more time away from the nest foraging on their own. This is why the wasps seem more numerous as summer draws to a close.

For anyone who has been stung, you’ll know that wasp stings are one of the most painful feelings that come from nature. The reason they feel like your arm is being melted by magma is because wasp venom has a three step process. Step 1, the enzymes break down the cell membranes and let the cell contents leak into your bloodstream. When the cell in question is a nerve cell it tells your brain what is happening by using pain as a communication device. Step 2, a second part of the venom slows down your blood flow which in turn makes the pain last longer. Step 3, a third part of the venom breaks through connective tissue between cells allowing the first part to reach more cells and cause more pain. The whole purpose of this three punch knockout is to convince you (aka nest predators) to leave their larva/babies alone. And surprise, surprise it is a spectacularly effective deterrent for most animals like raccoons, skunks and bears.

Wasp stinger with venom droplet

Although it is easy to panic and swat at the wasps when they invade our picnics, we are better off (and far less likely to get stung) if we just gently brush them away and then cover any food that they show interest in.


Venomously Yours,
Kip


P.S. This has nothing to do with the wasp, but as I was doing the research I just learned that you can train honey bees to sniff out explosive! How cool is that?!

Hello All

I was thinking back on this past week, trying to decide what neat things happened and what I should write about and I noticed that this past week has been very much about myths, legends and stories. Now you might wonder what Rondeau has to do with myths and legends and I agree that at first glance it can be tough to see the connection. As interpreters our job is to introduce people to wonders of the world around them. Myths, legends and stories are a great way to pique people’s interest in not only the history of an area, but also in nature.

Our shipwreck walk on Tuesday covered the story aspect of our Myth, Legend and Story week. The stories of local area shipwrecks were powerful and evocative and gave a sense of the tragedies that can occur on the deceptively calm appearance of Lake Erie’s waters. However, I’ve written about our shipwreck program in the past so I’ll leave it there.

The myth component was taken care of at our bat night on Friday evening. There are a lot of myths about the natural world and bats have their fair share of them. It’s amazing how many myths there are about bats considering how many cool things that are true about them, like eating half their body weight in food per evening (that’s like me eating 360 quarter pounders with cheese in a day). Buts myths do abound from flying into people’s hair to being completely blind. In reality bats can see just fine. Though for precision night time hunting and navigation, their echolocation is the tool at night.
















The only time you'll see a bat in someone's hair


And finally legends abounded on Saturday night when we talked of our celestial friends – the stars (unfortunately, due to a cloud bank we could not see them). Legends were shared from cultures around the world. We had Greek legends about the constellation Andromeda, Japanese legends about the star Vega and Native American Legends about the Big Dipper. If you’d like to hear them, you’ll have to join us for our next star night on Aug 7th.

















The Constellation of Andromeda
The fuzzy dot in the middle is the Galaxy of Andromeda



For the nature feature of this week, I though I’d keep to the same theme and talk about a creature who has a few of my favourite urban myths – the harvestmen. Now some of you may be wondering what a Harvestman is. You may know them better as daddy longlegs. The first misconception is that they are spiders. They look similar and are related to spiders, but if you look closely they have a couple of differences. The easiest one to spot is their body. Spiders have two body parts connected by a thin waste whereas harvestmen have only one oval shaped body part. Another big difference is that harvestmen can’t make silk (a defining characteristic of spiders). But one of the neatest differences is the eyes. Most spiders have 8 eight eyes, but harvestmen only have two which are located on a small turret on their back. The eyes are placed back to back so that the harvestmen can see all around it to avoid predators.



















Harvestmen/Daddy Longlegs

















The black dot are the eyes, back to back on a raise platform


When I was a kid we were always told that if you kill a daddy longlegs it will make it rain. This myth supposedly came about because daddy longlegs are more frequently seen before a rain storm (however, I’ve found no scientific evidence whether or not that is true). Another old wives tale that I’ve heard is that a daddy longlegs will point you in the direction of your lost cows. You have to pick up the harvestmen by all the legs except one. The free leg will then point you in the direction of your cows.

But my favourite myth has to be that harvestmen are the most poisonous ‘spider’ in the world, they just can’t pierce our skin with their fangs. Of course we already know that they aren’t spiders and the third thing that puts them in a different group is that they don’t have any venom at all. In fact, harvestmen don’t even have fangs! Instead, they have tong-like appendages that help them grasp their food. Harvestmen eat dead insects, decaying plants, insect eggs or smaller, slow moving insects – nothing that they need fangs or venom for. I have no idea where this myth originated, but it has become so pervasive that major TV shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy and Mythbusters have done programs to debunk it. It’s amazing how many myths there are about this small, innocuous creature. It just goes to show you that you can’t believe everything that you here.













Tong-like mouthparts of a harvestman


Once again I’ve attached this week’s upcoming schedule. If you have heard any weird facts about nature and want to know if they are true send me an email or drop by the Visitor Centre and we’ll de-mythify them for you.


Mythically Yours
Kip