Posted on 08/05/2008 9:05:55 AM PDT by SJackson
An army of local gardeners is tracking the impact of climate change on backyard flora
When Tom Koulentes is not advising students at Highland Park High School or chasing after his own kids, he spends time behind his small Des Plaines home researching climate change.
Koulentes is recording his garden's natural history, from the weigela's first leaf to the butterfly bush's last bloom, for Project BudBurst, a new nationwide research program based on the observations of ordinary people. He is looking for local signs like an early bloom or a late-falling leaf that stem from planetwide changes.
Only a handful of researchers study plants to chronicle global warming, but millions of gardeners quietly keep watch on their plants. BudBurst seeks to tap that potential, asking "citizen scientists" to monitor plants alongside trained scholars.
"If just scientists were working on this, there's no way we could obtain a data set of this size," said Kay Havens, director of plant science and conservation at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and one of the project's organizers.
Participants in BudBurst monitor one or more plants, native or non-native, throughout the growing season. Along the way, they record and report the dates of events such as the first flower or first seed. Like many citizen science programs, BudBurst is modeled after the Audubon Christmas bird count, an annual volunteer effort that has provided ornithologists with a century's worth of data.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Heh. We have hummingbirds, goldfinches, rose-breasted grosbeaks, cardinals, hawks and various types of woodpeckers, to name a few. We spend a small fortune feeding them all year. At one time we had a flock or flocks totalling about twenty wild turkeys.
Sounds like you've got some good birds where you live too. Rose-breasted grosbeaks? Excellent!
That's funny, it's the first year in 3 or 4 my raspberries have done well. The birds are pleased. The rain I assume. Found some blueberries I never knew I had too.
We had pileated woodpeckers when we first moved here, but I haven’t seen them recently. Maybe this winter, I hope. They’re amazing.
You see, it's all about human activity!
Several several years ago (BC) I actually had a bird on the Rare Bird Phone Line here on Humboldt Bay! It was only the 5th time a male Rose Breasted Grossbeak had been sighted in Humboldt County at that time. Several people came over to put it on their local list plus a Friend from the Local Bird Club verified (?) it...
What a great bird for Humboldt County. I’ve only had one sighting of a rose-breasted grosbeak. It was at a desert oasis called Corn Creek near Vegas. Caused quite a sensation in Sin City. Unfortunately, they were immature males, and didn’t have the shocking red breast of a mature male. But beggars can’t be choosers. At least they were rose-breasted grosbeaks!
One afternoon I was reading with my back to the feeders by the house and my wife walks by and exclaims “What is this big bird with a flaming pink breast” and without looking I said ...it's a Rose breasted Grosbeak. I had never seen one except in a Peterson field guide but I had been to that page often because we had some Evening Grosbeak stop by and I marveled at them...
Life is good when you're a birder.
They sound just like Woody the woodpecker. :)
They’re beautiful birds.
“My advice? If you like to garden and keep records, do it because you like to garden and keep records. But, jeez, don’t pretend you’re doing something to save the planet.”
Exactly!
I am glad to see there are other birders here too. I am going to do the bird count this year and can’t wait.
I have a lot of the birds mentioned here and I just started feeding them this year. I am bracing myself for winter and the cost associated with it, but will do so because I love to watch them!
I planted my first garden this year and the weather has been weird. One week it’s sunny, hot, humid and the next week it’s cool and rainy. But it has ALWAYS been like this because I live in New England.
Funny you should say that. There's no doubt the animators of Woody Woodpecker based it on the pileated woodpecker. But I think I figured out Woody's trademark laugh. It's actually the sound of the acorn woodpecker, which is very common in the foothills of California. My hunch is that the animators liked the pileated look, but gave him the laugh of the local California woodpecker: the acorn.
Worked out rather well for them, didn't it?
Dress warmly! :)
Always brightens my day to start with some bird pix. Thanks!
I guess it did. :) Woody is a cultural icon.
Doh, is it that grueling!! I guess I will have to triple layer and bring some food I can eat w/ one hand or something.
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