Wow! This past weekend has been a busy one! We started the weekend with an amazing performance by Juno Award winning children’s singer, Peter Puffin on Friday evening, followed by our annual Reptile Day on Saturday, and ending with Guest Speaker Josh Sayers from the Ontario Badger Project on Sunday!

The Friends of Rondeau and Rondeau park staff were thrilled to have Peter Puffin join us for an evening during his cross country tour this past Friday! The playground was filled with songs and laughter as Peter preformed some of his environmentally themed songs to over 150 people (and many star-struck children who couldn’t wait to volunteer to sing back up with Peter Puffin).

Our third annual “Turtle Day” was expanded upon this year to include all of Rondeau’s unique and interesting reptiles – so our first ever “Reptile Day” was a huge success with over 500 visitors throughout the day enjoying the presentations from our Eastern Foxsnake research team, our Freshwater Turtle Team, and our Five-lined Skink researchers, as well as children’s program, guided hikes, crafts, face-painting and a delicious BBQ lunch.

Today, Josh Sayers (of the Ontario Badger Project) shared some stories from the field about one of Ontario’s most elusive mammal species, the American Badger. Visitors were amazed to learn that a single badger’s territory can be as large as 80,000 acres (320 sq km)! So keep your eyes open, these secretive mammals may be living nearby. For more information about the Badger Project, check out www.ontariobadgers.org.

We’d like to thank everyone who came out to Rondeau and supported these events – we hope to see you out again soon!

Stay tuned for next week’s activity sheet…