Well, summertime 2005 is officially over in Europe and the clocks have all gone back one hour but unless you're taking to the mountains for the snow, the guys studying phenology (
the study of the timing of recurring biological phases, the causes of their timing with regard to biotic and abiotic forces, and the interrelation among phases of the same or different species!
ref: European Phenology Network , ie. the timing of natural events), want you to
skip winter and start looking for Spring 2006.
It seems that with global warming, spring is coming earlier and earlier, so
Bill Oddie at the BBC and the
UK Phenology Network want the Brits to get out their straight away and to start observing nature.
They want the public to look out for a particular species of bee, the red-tailed bumblebee, Bombus lapidarius, together with other nominated Springwatch species.Will frogs in the UK produce spawn before Xmas? Will British butterflies and hawthorn flowers appear even earlier than they did last year? Or will the cold winter predicted by meteorologists freeze nature out well into 2006?
