The first day of spring arrived on Sunday. I thought we could start a post to let people share their observations of spring unfolding in the area. If you see new birds, flowers blooming, trees budding, or anything else that’s a new sign of spring to you, comment here and share it with everyone. As for my wife and myself, we had a great first day of spring on the Misssissippi River at Frenchtown. The river is full of life right now and we saw our first Pelicans of the year and heard Sandhill Cranes calling. Later that evening we came home and were treated to a big flock of close to 20 Sandhill Cranes flying over Volga!
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Wildlife Phenology – A Great Family Activity
By Tim Loose
You may not recognize the word, but I’m willing to bet that many of you are practicing phenologists! I’ll guarantee your ancestors depended on phenology for their survival. So what is it?
Technically, phenology is the study of an organism’s response to seasonal and climatic changes in the environment! In simple terms it is keeping track of the changes occurring in nature and how the plants and animals respond to these changes.
If you live anywhere near a bald eagle nest, you probably noticed the eagles working on rebuilding their nests late last fall. Perhaps you even saw a new nest being built! This activity is in response to the eagle’s preparation for the nesting season. Bald Eagles in NE Iowa will start their courtship flights as early as February, and it’s not uncommon for them to lay their first egg by the end of February. If they were to wait until February to try and repair or rebuild their nest, they might have a hard time getting the materials to the nest site. The sticks they need would probably be frozen to the ground. So the eagles take advantage of the fall weather to touch-up or repair their nests.
If you think eagles get started early, they are relative slow pokes when compared to the great horned owls. Many of these owls are already sitting on eggs by early February and their owlets will start hatching in early March. If you’ve been lucky enough to discover a great horned owl nest in the early spring, one of the first things you will notice is the smell. It seems that the great horned owls time their nesting to take advantage of the early movements of skunks and other hibernating mammals. It only takes one good size skunk to feed a family of owls!
Keeping track of these events can be a fun activity for an individual or a family. Here at home I keep a calendar posted on the wall and I try to jot down the seasonal changes that I see throughout the year. For example I might record the first snowfall event of the fall or the first woodland wildflower I see blooming.
Something fun and interesting is always happening in nature. As your skills develop you will begin to notice subtle changes, like the first fall color changes in the roadside sumac, or perhaps the first spring thunderstorm.
Now is the perfect time to get started. Lots of families write down their sighting on a calendar and compare these notes from year to year. You might be surprised at the results. Keep in mind that this can be a year round activity. Some frog species don’t begin calling until late June and night hawks which migrate all the way to South America may start their fall migration in early August.
It’s also fun to share this information with others. A few years ago a national effort to help monitor seasonal changes throughout North America was launched by the Chicago Botanical Gardens. You can become a citizen scientist and provide valuable data to this effort through a program called Project Budburst.
To find out more, you might want to visit their website at:. http://neoninc.org/budburst/