Citizen Scientists Track Climate Change

  • Reporter Sadie Babits is tracking the blooming of a lilac tree, as part of a "citizen scientist" project that will document climate change. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Scientists are asking citizens to pay attention to plants this spring. They want you to report everything from leaf buds to blossoms. Scientists want those observations from right in your backyard to better understand how climate change is affecting plants and trees. Sadie Babits liked the idea and signed up:

Transcript

Scientists are asking citizens to pay attention to plants this spring. They want you to report everything from leaf buds to blossoms. Scientists want those observations from right in your backyard to better understand how climate change is affecting plants and trees. Sadie Babits liked the idea and signed up:

You know, I found it really isn’t hard to be a citizen scientist.

I’m on the website for Project Budburst. It’s a nationwide effort to get people out into their backyards to track spring flowers. All I have to do is to pick a plant or tree to keep an eye on and then report my findings.

I’m thinking I’ll check out the lilac trees in my neighborhood here in Portland. But before I head out, I need some advice.

So I called Sandra Henderson. She’s busy these days directing Project Budburst at the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research.

“Hey Sadie.”

I reach Henderson at her office in Boulder, Colorado.

What advice do you have for me, a first citizen scientists observing phenology?

“The ideal thing to do is get a sense of when lilacs in your case in Portland, Oregon are expected to have different pheno events.”

Good thing I looked up phenology before calling Henderson. Basically it means nature’s calendar – the timing of when cherry blossoms bloom or a robin builds a nest.

And these life cycles of plants and animals are sensitive to changes in climate.

“Plants provide a wonderful context for understanding changes to the environment and they certainly respond to changes in temperature and precipitation, things that climate scientists are very interested in.”

Scientists can’t be in everyone’s backyard. That’s where volunteers come in. Last year some five thousand people across the country reported their observations to Project Budburst. That information now is the foundation for an online database that includes everything from dandelions to ponderosa pines.

So after walking through our neighborhood and seeing a lot of trees that have already flowered, I’ve decided that these lilac trees outside of our house are perfect for watching because they haven’t flowered yet and there are leaf buds all over the branches. And here’s a branch and the leaf buds are huge and they are just starting to unfurl.

Now that I’ve found my lilac tree to watch, I can report today’s findings.

Really that’s it. Scientists are finding out a lot of interesting things. For example, forsythia in Chicago are blooming a week earlier. These simple observations will eventually create a snapshot of how climate change is affecting plants across the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Interview: Feathered Friends Return

It’s no wonder the International Migratory Bird Day is held in the month of May. This is the time when trees leaf out and provide a welcome habitat to birds returning from their southern dwelling spots. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jim Blum ventures beyond the backyard to see who’s back:

Transcript

It’s no wonder the International Migratory Bird Day is held in the month of May. This is the time
when trees in the Great Lakes states leaf out and provide a welcome habitat to birds returning
from their southern dwelling spots. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jim Blum decided to
venture beyond the backyard to see who’s back:


Blum: Take a stroll into a forest and you may notice that trees have greened out this month.
There are thick canopies overhead that weren’t there just a week or two ago. Naturalist Dan Best
says, that times out very nicely for returning migratory birds.


Best: That’s right. A few warm days and the leaves just explode out of the buds. And we have
full leaf-out already. May is just an amazing month. You still have the wildflowers, lots of
wildflowers. And well, Jim, what do you hear?


Blum: Well, certainly a parade of birds that I didn’t hear a month ago. The nuthatches and the
chickadees are still here, but who’s joined them?


Best: Lots and lots of birds. New arrivals here. We have thrushes and warblers and vireos and
tanagers, flycatchers – a tremendous variety of birds that have come to us from their wintering
areas in Latin America. That is South America, Central America, the Caribbean nations. These
birds have made their way, many of them traveling at night, using amazing means of navigation.
They’re using celestial navigation, that is, using the stars. They’re using perhaps the earth’s
magnetism, sensitivity to polarized light, a variety of different means to make their way
thousands of miles over land and ocean to return here to our forests to nest.


Blum: Why May, why now, why so many?


Best: Well, let’s take a walk over to some of these leaves, and no matter what kind of tree you’re
looking at here, what do you notice on these leaves?


Blum: Well, it seems as if several of them have little chew marks or holes.


Best: That’s right, holes. And no sooner does a leaf out, then the salad bar is served for
hundreds of different kinds of caterpillars, whether they be butterflies or especially moths. Their
hatching of these eggs of these caterpillars is synchronized with this leaf-out.


Blum: So, apparently there are many visitors to this buffet, but who, what, and where?


Best: Well, ok. Let’s listen here. (bird chirps) Hear that over there? That’s a hooded warbler.
(bird chirps again) Yeah, there it goes. Now that one will tend to stay low. Oh, the male might
go up a little higher to sing to announce its territory, but generally it’s gonna forge in this shrub
layer in the lower part of the forest.


Blum: (another bird chirps) Now what was that?


Best: Well, I can hear a nice warble up there. That’s the rose-breasted grosbeak. They all
spend most of their time in the understory – that’s about halfway up in this mature forest we’re in.
And then listening a little higher above us, I can hear that nice hoarse, robin-like song of the
scarlet tanager. And I’m even picking up the cerulian warbler, and a little bit of the hoarser vireo
sound, as well as the yellow-throated vireo, and those birds like to stay high up in the canopy.


Blum: So in order for this forest restaurant, if you will, to accommodate so many different
customers, it needs different stories.


Best: That’s right. These birds are here because of the big insect menu that the forest has to
offer. And they’re not fighting for the same seat at the same table because they’re distributed in
these different levels of the forest.


Blum: So if you’re talking about a canopy, an understory, and a shrub layer, you’re indicating a
mature forest.


Best: That’s right. That’s a characteristic of a mature and old growth forest is it has these defined
layers. This kind of habitat, these large tracts of mature forests are getting harder to come by, as
the large trees are logged out, or even worse, these remaining forest tracts are continually
fragmented into smaller parcels, which are less suitable for this big diversity of forest-nesting
birds.


Blum: Now, Dan, I’ve seen the bird books. These birds are extremely colorful. Any tips on the
best chance of actually seeing them?


Best: Well, bring your binoculars into the forest with you. And don’t charge up to every song
that you hear. Just slow down, take it nice and easy. Look where you hear a song. Watch for that
little movement of leaves. Spot that movement. Raise your binoculars and you’ll eventually see
them. You’ll get to see these different kinds of birds.


Blum: That’s naturalist Dan Best. Some of us live in one story houses and some in high-rise
buildings. It’s a good idea when bird-watching to remember that birds also have their own
preferred level. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jim Blum.