Tracking Spring in Serendipity Gardens

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Red winged blackbird

This faithful bird is a true harbinger of spring at Serendipity Gardens.

As I have blogged about previously, watching each year for the return of the red-winged blackbirds and listening for the spring peepers to start peeping are spring milestones that I track informally each year.

I also really enjoy watching the birds migrate north via maps like the 2015 Ruby-throated hummingbird migration map. It’s just so fascinating to think of those determined little travelers making their way to their summer homes each year. When I first looked at the map this year, the birds had reached just inside the continental United States. Now, they are entering Ohio and Indiana. Next stop: Michigan and beyond.

I also enjoy the idea of Citizen Science projects, where I can help scientists by observing what’s happening and reporting it. Browsing on the web one night, I discovered a couple of sites that allow me — and you — to track spring in a number of other ways and submit observations: Project Budburst and Journey North.

Project Budburst

Project Budburst is a Citizen Science project geared toward both individuals and educators. It’s easy to join and turn in reports — and it is fun. The idea is that you — or a class of students if you are an educator — pick certain plants and turn in reports about when various seasonal changes happen to them. Combined, the reports from many sources help scientists determine the effects of climate change and more.

Here is what the Project Budburst website has to say about itself:

“We are a network of people across the United States who monitor plants as the seasons change. We are a national field campaign designed to engage the public in the collection of important ecological data based on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants (plant phenophases). Project BudBurst participants make careful observations of these plant phenophases. The data are being collected in a consistent manner across the country so that scientists can use the data to learn more about the responsiveness of individual plant species to changes in climate locally, regionally, and nationally. Thousands of people from all 50 states have participated. Project BudBurst began in 2007 in response to requests from people like you who wanted to make a meaningful contribution to understanding changes in our environment.”

The website also suggests this haiku as a way to invite people to join and participate:

People watching plants
Contributing to research
Join Project BudBurst

Why not consider doing it yourself?

The Journey North

The Journey North website is a veritable cornucopia of tracking devices. Like Project Budburst, the site is geared toward educators and classes, but individuals are welcome to participate, too. Depending in part on where you live, the site allows participants to track all sorts of spring events:

  • Longer daylight hours
  • First robins singing
  • First earthworms sighted
  • Arrival of Red-winged Blackbirds
  • Monarch butterflies
  • Milkweed, first leaves
  • Whooping cranes
  • Gray Whales
  • Bald eagles
  • Frogs
  • Ice outs
  • Leaf outs
  • And more

Here is what the Journey North website has to say about itself:

Seasonal change is all around us. We see it in the length of a day, in the appearance of a flower, in the flight of a butterfly. Journey North engages students and citizen scientists around the globe in tracking wildlife migration and seasonal change. Participants share field observations across the northern hemisphere, exploring the interrelated aspects of seasonal change.

Sunlight and the Seasons
Discovering how sunlight drives seasonal change by tracking changes in day length, or photoperiod.

Plants and the Seasons
Exploring plant growth in tulip test gardens, running an experiment to track the arrival of spring.

Seasonal Migrations
Following animal migrations. Observing, reporting, and tracking travels across the hemisphere.

Journey North is a free, Internet-based program presented by Annenberg Learner, a division of the Annenberg Foundation.

Share Your Sightings Journey North 2015

From the Journey North website.

Registration is easy. Simply visit the website to sign up. To make reports, you can use your computer or download an App that enables you to submit observations on the go.

I hope that, along with me, you’ll engage in the fun of being a Citizen Scientist — and in watching the approach of spring more closely than you might otherwise.

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