Welcome to Ruthven Park’s new Nature Blog. This blog will replace the Haldimand Bird Observatory blog that was used to detail Ruthven’s (and Selkirk Provincial Park’s) Migration Monitoring observations in 2006. Additionally, this blog is intended for discussion of all the fauna and flora at Ruthven Park, not just the birds! However, this blog will detail Ruthven’s (almost) daily Migration Monitoring observations in the spring and fall, so there will certainly be an avifauna theme throughout.

For those who were regular readers of the Haldimand Bird Observatory blog, make sure to scroll down through the past several posts. There are a few new ones from this year that did not get posted on the old site.

The website is currently under construction, but is functional. Since it is spring, expect to find (almost) daily Migration Monitoring updates over the next few months. You will probably also notice changes in the website format, new links appearing on the right side of the page, more content under the ‘About Ruthven Park’ link and other links at the top of the page, and more…

You may also notice, looking at the archives on the right side of the page, that it seems this blog has been active for a very long time. This isn’t the case, but I have managed to transfer all of the posts from the old Haldimand Bird Observatory blog to this website. This seemed appropriate, since most of the posts on that blog described the fauna and flora at Ruthven, and it is nice to have those archives available for browsing (all the pictures have transferred too).

A few more features of the new website:

-Like the old blog, this one has comment functionality. I think comments are even easier to leave this time, as only a name and email address are necessary. At the end of any post, click ‘leave a comment’ and type away. Comments usually make the blog more enjoyable, so don’t hesitate to leave one!

-In the top right corner of the page, there is a search bar (see ‘Find this’). Use this function to search the blog for specific terms. For example, if you wanted to find out about the last time Painted Buntings were encountered at Ruthven, it may be a good idea to type ‘Painted Bunting’ into this search bar.

Enjoy!