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Dear (Contact First Name),
We're not yet halfway through the year and yet Nature's Notebook observers have submitted over 1 million records to the National Phenology Database. At this rate, we are well on our way to this year's goal of 2 million records!
We know that we owe much of this impressive number of observations to you, our Partners and Local Phenology Leaders! Let us say thank you with the resources below - we hope that there are some tools and tips that you will find useful this summer.
Sincerely,
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What's new at Nature's Notebook and USA-NPN
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Video demos help you explore our new maps
We've added two new suites of maps to the USA-NPN Visualization Tool that allow you to look at trends in climate patterns. You can explore maps of accumulated growing degree days (often used to predict the timing of life cycle transitions) and the Spring Indices (an indicator of the "start of spring") to learn how spring unfolds in a particular year, how spring compares between years, and more.
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Summer podcast series highlights phenologists
This summer, we're starting a new podcast series to give you an inside perspective on the lives of people who are involved in phenology in a variety of different ways. Our first podcast features an interview with Ellen Denny, the USA-NPN Monitoring Design & Data Coordinator.
She'll tell you about all the behind-the-scenes that goes into adding species to Nature's Notebook, how we choose the phenophases on the datasheets, and what she loves to observe the most.
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 New Phenophase Primer on the way
Last year, we created the Botany Primer to help you understand the basic botany you need for Nature's Notebook. This fall, we'll be offering you a second Primer, this time focusing in-depth on the phenophases of Nature's Notebook. This Primer will include an overview of the different functional groups, and a section on observing intensity of phenophases.
Stay tuned for more later this fall!
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Recent happenings in the field of phenology
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Kodiak brown bears surf the salmon wave
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| | Photo: Greg Wilker, USFWS |
Authors of a study from the University of Montana, University of Wyoming, and US Fish and Wildlife Service investigated how well Kodiak brown bears track spawning salmon. They found that bears were 50 times more likely to be detected at streams where salmon were spawning than where they were not, and bears that traveled to more sites with salmon had more days of salmon access than bears that stayed put. Bears depend greatly on this salmon resource, which is threatened by habitat fragmentation and low diversity of spawning phenology that can be introduced by hatchery stocks.
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More ways to get involved
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| | Photo: Brian F Powell |
Did you celebrate National Cit Sci Days?
The first-ever National Citizen Science Days were held from April 16-May 21st this year. We would love to hear more about how you participated! We've created a super-short survey so you can tell us.
Take the 2-question survey �
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| | Photo: Brian F Powell |
Junior Phenologist Certification
Do you know a budding young phenologist? Our 6-week junior phenologist certification program requires that participating students under the age of 18 make at least 6 consistent and consecutive observations for Nature's Notebook, including entering the data from the plants and animals they observe into our National Phenology Database.
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Especially for Local Phenology Leaders
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Photo: Brian F Powell
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Tricky volunteer management scenarios
We've been asking some expert LPLs what they would do in certain scenarios that often plague volunteer managers. Their answers might surprise you!
This month, we highlight what to do when your small group of volunteers becomes burned out on observing:
- "Have a volunteer appreciation event to show how grateful you are for their service"
- "Recruit a college intern to help out with recruitment"
- "Invite local teachers to get their classrooms involved"
- "Send a mass email out to groups who might be interested in helping - Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, Habitat Stewards, etc."
- "Ask your group members to invite a friend to participate"
- "Invite your burned-out volunteers to help with a training of new volunteers, to pass along what they have learned"
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Photo: Brian F Powell
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Get Certified as a Local Phenology Leader
This fall, we will be offering a new certification program for Local Phenology Leaders. This will be a two-month online course that will walk you through how to set up a phenology monitoring program using Nature's Notebook, and how to teach others how to use it. You will be eligible for Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for your participation. We'll have more details for you on how to sign up in our next newsletter.
Want to learn more?
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Photo: N Carlson
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We've got the phenophase photos you need
The USA-NPN Phenophase photo page is filling up! We welcome you to use these photos to create phenophase guides for your observers. We have templates you can use for these guides - just pick your species and drop in photos from the Flickr page.
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