Phenology Day was a success!

Happy Week-After-Earth-Week!

Phenology Day Flyer

It has been an exciting few weeks here in Tucson at our USA National Phenology Network National Coordinating Office.  We hosted a celebratory first annual Phenology Day along our Tucson Phenology Trail!  The event highlighted all of our local partners who have established phenology walks at their sites and introduced our visitors to phenology research, phenology observations, and phenology community spirit!  And we even added a new partner at a local elementary school.  

Praying mantis egg case. Photo credit: A. Bassett

On Phenology Day we offered talks on a variety of topics. Beginning at the Pima 

Cottonwood time-series. Photo credit: I. Shiach

Extension Office's Tucson Village Farm we provided an overview of the day, of our Tucson Phenology Trail, and introduced participants to the walk at the site. Not only did we collect data on the plant species tagged, but we found some very cool insects as well.  A praying manits egg case on our mesquite was especially fun to see and show our younger participants.  

Our Biosphere2 volunteer, Ian Shiach (USA-NPN SNRE Graduate Student), showed visitors his master's research poplar plantation (under the direction of Dr. Dave Moore).  Data from the plantation will combine on-the-ground, camera, and satellite data to understand better what different types of phenology information can tell us and if the methods are correlated.  He shared a time lapse video from the plantation that was fascinating to watch, and makes you realize how much you are missing when you only look at your plants once a week or a month.

While no one made it out to our Tucson Audubon Society Mason Center site, we had some great staff and volunteers out there who hiked along the established phenology walk.  Alyssa Rosemartin (USA-NPN Assistant Director and IT Coordinator) and Jherime Kellermann (USA-NPN Technical Research Associate), two staff with a birding background, and Jim Guessman (Tucson Audubon weekly bird walk host) shared stories about bird phenology on location at the Mason Center.  

Mesquite Flower. Photo credit: P. Guertin

Volunteers and participants met at the Joseph Wood Krutch Garden, Campus Arboretum site, to learn about a
variety of research projects conducted by Arboretum members and students and learn about desert plan phenology.  Patty Guertin, USA-NPN Botanist, provided an overview of phenophases for the plants we've got tagged in the garden.  Many of them were blooming during this spring season.  

Cloned lilac project open flower. T. Crimmins

Lunchtime talks included an overview of the USA-NPN and its goals, presented by Jake Weltzin, our Executive Director, as well an overview of our lilac data from the cloned plants project presented by Outreach Coordinator Theresa Crimmins.  After collecting data in for a few years in Nature's Notebook we are able to visualize the "onset of spring" by tracking the leafing and flowering of lilacs across the country.   This slide to the right shows the date of first reported "yes" for registered lilacs in our National Phenology Database.  

Fact sheet. K. Welch

After lunch we met in one of our newest neighborhood associations, Rincon Heights, for a guided walk.  Kara Welch, entomology graduate student, along with Robert Orpet (entomology grad student), and Melody Peters (Rincon Heights Board Member and resident) shared their tagged plants with all of the participants.  Kara also created some insect phenology identification sheets (check it out, to the left!) to use in conjunction with the Nature's Notebook datasheets.  She is interested in learning more about the plant-pollinator interactions here in the desert and the Tucson Phenology Trail will offer a great place to gather data to answer her questions.  We also saw some great examples of the mesquite twig girdlers at a few of our trail sites.  The photo below shows an example, perhaps from last year, at the Pima Extension Office.  This is PROVEL-1.  

Mesquite twig girdle. Photo credit: A. Bassett

Phenology Day was a great way to connect all of our sites along the Tucson Phenology Trail and highlight the opportunities for collaboration.  Phenology is a great lens for teaching many things, and at the very least, provides a way for folks to connect to their environment and take a closer look at some of the things they might miss on a day-to-day basis.  I encourage you to think about not only setting up a phenology walk at a site that you visit frequently but also to partner with local organizations who share similar outreach and environmental education missions.  

If you'd like more information on what we did or how you can participate, send me an email!