April 1st, 2025
When I was making observations, I found it difficult to confidently identify some of the trees because the buds were so small. I spent a lot of time comparing the buds to the diagrams that we have and making sure the bark matched up to what I thought it should look like, but there weren’t a lot of leaves or other easy identifiers because of how early it was in the season. Entering my data into Nature’s Notebook, I found it was the same for all of the trees that I observed. I didn’t notice any buds breaking or any leaves on the tree. There were no living leaves, but the sugar maple and white oak had a few dead leaves from last season still attached to their branches. When I was observing, there was no snow on the ground, but it had snowed two days prior and I think two days after as well. I feel like these observations line up with the normal phenological timeline, though.
I was interested in learning more about the maps and data on Nature’s Notebook, so I looked at the “Status of Spring” tab. It talks about how data is collected, what it means, and how they use it. For example, they use the global observations to tell if spring is coming early, late, or on time compared to past years. This could be a great tool for looking at the effects of climate change in relation to phenology because it combines lots of temperature and phenology data, and can compare it to historical data. It can be useful locally to see how climate change affects specific local actions, but can also be used on a broader scale to see how it is impacting the world as a whole. I also think it’s great how anyone can participate, so more people can make a difference!