Site of the Week
Phenology http://www.phenology.org.uk
Phenology is the study of the times of recurring natural phenomena: keeping a record of the arrival and departure of migrating birds for example. Phenology - the website - is a place for nature-enthusiasts to register their phenological info in one place.
Run by The Woodland Trust, the site is basically a huge database, to which users can contribute. You’ll need to register to get a username and password, but once you have, you can use the online forms to add your sightings of birds, trees, insects and flowers. There’s plenty of background reading to guide you through the process, and so that your data are as accurate as possible, you’ll find species information and pictures to help you.
More than 2000 people all over the country contribute to the site, and when merged with data from the last few decades, their sightings can help scientists to analyse the ebb and flow of biological systems - to look for possible evidence of climate change, for instance. You can do some simple analysing yourself: the ‘View Trends’ section allows you to construct graphs of all sorts of things - the first sightings of young blackbirds, or the first flowering of bluebells, over the years.
If you’re the kind of person who notices when the swifts arrive in early Summer, and you’d like to have somewhere to share your enthusiasm, then this could be the site for you.
Richard Northover
Info-content ** Readability ** Appearance ** User friendliness ** Kids ** Plug-ins ChartFX (for the graphs)