Nature's Notebook Quarterly   Issue: Summer 2013
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@TheresaCrimmins




Keep watching your plants and animals throughout the summer and fall, fruiting and leaf fall phenophases will begin occurring soon!  
 

Greetings!   

 
Here we are, half-way through 2013, and with lots to report. If you've been watching the progress meter on the Nature's Notebook homepage, then you probably noticed that we reached the half-way mark to our goal of 1M records logged into Nature's Notebook in 2013 at almost exactly the half-way point in the year! I missed catching it when it said exactly "50%," but you probably know what I mean...
 
This got me wondering how many of those records were for leaf phenophases, and how many were for flowers, and how many were for animals... so I created the infographic at right to visually present this information. The entire rectangle represents all phenology observations that have been reported into Nature's Notebook in 2013 so far (over 65,000!). The size of the square represents the proportion of those observations that fall into a particular phenophase category. Cool patterns...I was surprised to see so many records for "mating" and "feeding"! Thanks to all of you for your dedication to this effort, it is because of your commitment that I have fun things like this to report back to you!  
 

Sincerely,

 

What's in this issue:

  

 

What your data are telling us

spring2013Spring 2013 much later than Spring 2012

How did the timing of this spring compare to last spring at your house? In Milwaukee, WI, the start of spring, as estimated from leaf-out on cloned lilac plants, was nearly 40 days later in 2013 than in 2012! Both years were remarkable; leaf-out in 2012 was nearly three weeks ahead of the long-term average (Apr 13), and in 2013 leaf-out occurred about two weeks late.

Regional phenology info sheets available for entire US

Learn more about how the timing of life cycle events is changing in plants and animals in your region.
What's new at Nature's Notebook and USA-NPN
mobile
Recent jump in data submitted via mobile app


We all love our smartphones and tablets, and this is reflected in how data are submitted to Nature's Notebook. In 2012, less than 3% of observations were submitted via mobile device; in 2013, this number jumped to nearly 8%!
  
visvideosStart exploring patterns in Nature's Notebook observations
  
vis tool screencap Have you explored the data that have been submitted to Nature's Notebook in the online visualization tool yet? You can compare species at a site, between sites, through time, explore relationships with climate data, and more.

Learn how with brand new demo videos! 
Recent happenings in the field of phenology
grsmPhenology used to teach park visitors about climate change

GRSM video Great Smoky Mountains National Park recently released a wonderful video featuring phenology monitoring as an example of how to engage park visitors and deepen their interest in understanding climate change.

This is part of a series of NPS movies and podcasts that bring you glimpses of nature and science through audio and video.
More ways to get involved
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