Hello Everyone

The summer has arrived (although technically I suppose it arrived a week ago on June 21st). It really has been a blur of staff training, school programs and scavenger hunts here at the Visitor Centre.

We kicked off June by heading off for a four day training workshop that involves all the naturalists from all of Ontario Parks. The workshop was a great opportunity for all of the staff to meet other people in our field, learn new things and share new ways of interpreting the wonders of nature to our visitors. My highlight was learning that there is a spider out there that is vegetarian and feeds on fruit. Nature’s variety never ceases to amaze me. Just I when you think you’ve learned the basic truths about life, such as the fact that only plants photosynthesize, nature comes along and shows you how wrong you are (apparently there is a sea slug that has been discovered that can photosynthesize). But our training didn’t stop there, the rest of June was spent working on public speaking skills, program writing and identifying the plants and animals that make up the Rondeau community. Now we are ready to answer all of the questions you send our way.

In addition to training, June has been jumping with school groups. We’ve had everything from kindergartens kids learning about living things through to grade 6 students making mock park decisions about biodiversity. We’ve even had some grade 8 students come all the way down from Toronto to visit our precious piece of paradise. So I’d like to give a big thanks to Laura who organized it all and made sure all those students had a wonderful learning experience here at the park.

But out of all the cool stuff going on right now, I’m probably most excited by our scavenger hunt. We were looking for new ways to get our visitors to see even more of the park than they already do. After brainstorming with a few people, the idea of a photo scavenger hunt was born. The photos to be taken are in all different locations in the park (i.e. the lighthouse beacon and the Wilkinson’s Expedition sign) and doing all sorts of park related activities (i.e. playing sports and singing at a campfire). Depending on how many of the photos are taken, their picture goes up on our Scavernger Hunt Wall of Fame in one of our four levels; Chipmunk, Fox, Monarch and Eagle. And even more exciting, the photos that are taken can be entered into our photo contest and could end up on the cover of next year’s Rondeau Tabloid! But the thing that really excites me is that it is starting to take off, for most of June the only people on our Wall of Fame were the Visitor Centre Staff. But now that school is out more and more people are taking part and we’ve just had our first person reach the eagle level by getting all 30 photos. So I challenge you all to come out, take some photos and see if you can do better than our park staff!

Although I fully admit that June has been racing by, the real telltale sign of June is the slow, plodding of our shell covered reptile – the turtle. If you have been at the park, or even just driving around near any water bodies you’ve probably been noticing a lot of turtles out wandering around or digging holes at the side of the road. June is egg laying month for a lot of our turtle species, and is therefore one of the best chances to see some turtles without canoeing through the marsh. This time of year the female turtles leave their watery abodes to go in search of the perfect soil in which to lay their eggs. This careful selection of a nesting site is the last thing they will do for their young, because once the eggs are laid they are on their own. Hopefully the nest will remain secure until the end of summer and early fall when the young male and female turtles can dig their way out of the nest and rush down to the safety of the water. One of the coolest things about turtles is that being a boy or a girl is based not on the turtles genes, but on the temperature of the egg while it was incubating. In snapping turtles, eggs will hatch all girls if the temperature was below 21°C or above 29°C. If the temperature was 23°C to 24°C then all the eggs will be boys and if the temperature was 21°C to 22°C or 25°C to 28°C then there is a mix of both sexes.


Although, snapping turtles are well protected with their armoured backs and snapping jaws, very few turtles will actually make it to an age where they can reproduce and lay eggs of their own. Between eggs getting eating by raccoons, baby turtles getting eaten by predators and a bunch of other hazards, research indicates that only 1 turtle out of 100 will survive to adulthood – not very good odds. However, in the natural world, once they get to adulthood the yearly survival rate jumps to 97%. Unfortunately, roads and cars have changed their natural world. Now, the major cause of death of the adults is being hit by cars as they move from pond to pond or go in search of a nesting site. So we ask that everyone is careful while they drive, especially in the spring, and keep an eye out for those turtles who are just plodding along looking for a good place to lay the next generation.

Ploddingly Yours
Kip