Keep your eyes open for what?
For all of the nature that is beginning to emerge, sprout and bloom because spring is near.
Phenology is the study of timing of natural events. I'm always encouraging you to go outside and observe nature, now I'm also asking you to jot down notes of your observations (if you don't already).
Science and nature watching organizations depend on great nature-loving watchers like you to keep their data bases up-to-date. Plus, your observations help scientists determine if there may be some changes in plant and animal winter and spring transitions changes due to climate change. Remember, nothing we know about the natural world in science comes to our knowledge without lots of information to support the idea (hypothesis). So open your eyes and report your results.
The Museum of Science (Boston, Massachusetts) celebrates a second year of Firefly Watching. April 11 is Firefly Day.
Join the Firefly Watch Brigade. Observe fireflies in your hometown and report your observations to the Museum of Science database.
The National Phenology Network is an online community of scientists and citizen scientists. Join as we all catalogue our plant observations. Hat tip to Kim Hannula.
Photo by Alecia HoytAnd please leave me a comment and let me know what you're seeing (and when) in your backyard. Keep having Urban Science Adventures! ©
***Update: Later today, 4:30 pm. Look what I noticed blooming in my frontyard.***
Plus other signs of bloom.
4 comments:
We drove past a magnolia tree in bloom! It's the only one we've seen, and a bit early too for this species. But we had several warm days in a row, so the tree might have been fooled!
Maybe, but everything is emerging early this year.
The crocus at Missouri Botanical Garden were blooming in February.February!!! and I saw Robins hanging out in a field (my personal spring clock) in mid-Feb as well.
Watching fireflies has always been one of my favorite things. I once lived in a place where there were so many of them that you could wave your hand in the air and scoop up several of them.
Here in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, our cherry trees, Bradford Pears and Redbuds just started to bloom this past week.
ALSO! Another site where you can log your observations is iNaturalist.org It's still relatively new and already shows a great deal of promise! I have been having a lot of fun with it.
P.S. Thanks for tip on Firefly Day. I put it on my calendar and will try come up with an appropriate post. I'm still trying to come up with a post for the next Diversity in Science Carnival--- I'm thinking of highlighting Nalini Nadkarni. I'm incredibly smitten with her work with trees.
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