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I hope you had fun with Seek last week! Now that you can identify your outdoor friends, it's time to get your phenology badge.
Option A: get a Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar and take physical notes! Hard-copy folks may also like a notebook categorized by event in order to make year-to-year comparisons. Pros: easy to start, satisfying, no messing with computers. Cons: isn't shared with scientists, easy for data to be lost, hard to look up specific info.
Option B: Nature's Notebook! It's the phenologist's best app. To use it, you'll first select a site you visit often. Then, you'll choose a few specific species to observe (I recommend 4 or 5 to start). Then, as you go out to observe, Nature's Notebook will prompt you with a list of things to examine! There's an online training course to get started, which I highly recommend you complete before going out to make your first observations. Pros: phenology data is available to scientists, keeps your data secure, easy to look up your records when you need to. Cons: requires some training to use, occasional glitches.
Give it a try!
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