Donna L. Long

Helpful Resources for the PBS American Spring Live Program

Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa Atalanta) sipping salts from human skin.
Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa Atalanta) sipping salts from human skin.

I watched the PBS Nature show entitled, American Spring Live this past week. The three episodes highlighted the migration, births, and science projects that take place during the spring season. The full episodes are available at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/american-spring-live/ until May 29, 2019. I wouldn’t say the episodes were “must sees”. I think I was not fascinated by the show because there was very little information I didn’t already know. I think that would hold true for most to the people who read this blog. We are a pretty nature savvy bunch.

During the show, there was a strong emphasis on citizen science. I would even say that the main aim of the show was to inspire people to participate in citizen science projects. Every episode spotlighted a person who was contributing to a project. One of the hosts said the aim was to turn “viewers into doers”.

For those of you who are new to this blog or maybe you missed some of the last fourteen years of posts, I have made a list of posts that discuss some of the subjects discussed by the show. My posts are more in-depth explanations of phenomena and ecology that were in the television program.

If you are interested in learning and participating in citizen science projects, read these posts.

By Seney Natural History Association [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. I had been noticing quite a bit of activity around this hole in a dead tree last week. It seemed like a couple of black-capped chickadees were about to move in. They were in and out of the hole frequently for two days, but then the activity stopped abruptly. I have seen them in the area a few more times recently. I looked into the hole but couldn’t see the bottom, it was quite deep! I guess I am not sure if they are nesting there or if it is a food cache. My hand is for scale. Photo Credit: Sara Hollerich, USFWS. (Parus atricapillus)

Citizen Science

Citizen Science and Nature Journal Keeping https://wp.me/pQ33x-1lQ

SciStarter is the Citizen Science resources most mentioned by the hosts during the program. There are other clearinghouses. An Internet search for the term, “citizen science” will bring many results. https://scistarter.org/

Phenology is Deep Ecology https://wp.me/pQ33x-1mz

Collecting Phenology Data https://wp.me/pQ33x-1mz

Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana)

Migration

Bird Migration Facts https://wp.me/pQ33x-s2

Bird Migration Routes – Do You Live Near One? https://wp.me/pQ33x-1e

Animal Migration https://wp.me/pQ33x-7u

Hibernation Is Suspended Animation https://wp.me/pQ33x-ze

Butterflies

The Butterfly Egg and Where to Find It (The Butterfly Life Cycle) – these series of posts explain each stage of the butterflies metamorphosis from egg to adult. https://wp.me/pQ33x-Gx

Native Plants

Why Native Plants? discusses how indigenous plants function in an environment and we need to have mostly native plants in our gardens. https://wp.me/pQ33x-10R

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