Websites or accounts that document the changing seasons

August 21, 2020 8:57 AM

Are there any websites, Twitter accounts, etc that document what annual things are happening in the natural world daily / weekly / monthly / whatever? Things like different animals starting migration, different flowers blooming, etc.

I'm leaving this purposefully vague because there could be lots of ways of fulfilling this, but I'm not looking for new things that are happening ("this animal has never been seen this far north before!") but things that happened regularly ("geese have started migrating.") Doesn't necessarily have to be annual events only.

posted by Tehhund to Science & Nature (16 answers total)

Nature's Notebook comes to mind.
posted by wicked_sassy at 9:01 AM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Are you looking for your own location or anywhere?
posted by pinochiette at 9:04 AM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Missouri, USA would be nice but anywhere in the world is fine.
posted by Tehhund at 9:06 AM on August 21, 2020

BBC Springwatch and Autumnwatch with the very brilliant naturalists Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan, documenting British wildlife through the changing of the seasons every year since 2005.
posted by doornoise at 9:27 AM on August 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

Just to mention that Chris, in particular, does not pull any punches when it comes to the impact of climate change on the environment, so if you're looking for entirely fluffy content, this may not suit.
posted by doornoise at 9:31 AM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I really love the app 72 Seasons, which provides descriptions and illustrations of Japanese seasonal concepts as each micro season arrives throughout the year.
posted by annathea at 9:40 AM on August 21, 2020 [5 favorites]

If you search for #phenology on Twitter you'll find many accounts documenting various natural cycles worldwide.

The USA National Phenology Network, with which the above-mentioned Nature's Notebook is affiliated, collects data and publishes visualizations, news, and forecasts for a lot of (often very specific) events. It's not necessarily oriented towards users with a casual interest, but does have some nice maps showing the progress of springtime, for example.
posted by theory at 9:44 AM on August 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

BirdCast.info has migration maps for the US.
It’s pretty specific, but fog.today provides maps of where the fog is currently located in the bay area, plus some historical trends.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:08 AM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Naturally Curious with Mary Holland is an old school blog that talks about what the natural world is doing as the seasons change. It's a companion to a book she's written which will literally give you month by month accounts of what is going on. We're in Vermont, so it won't line up with your climate exactly but it's nice and simple.
posted by jessamyn at 10:28 AM on August 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure if this is quite what you're looking for, but the Flickr group "Signs of the Seasons" is limited to posting only photos taken within the last 7 days. It gives a really nice snapshot to seasonal changes happening all over the world, but tends to be more "here's what's blooming right now" rather than things that are more explicit events, although those are present as well.
posted by duien at 11:20 AM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

The Twitter hashtag #FlowerReport is people posting pictures of flowers local to them. Mostly active on Sundays, but you'll get an assortment of tweets weeklong.
posted by humbug at 11:43 AM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I buy the Chris Hardman EcoLogical Wall Calendar every year to help my household be mindful of these things regularly. Great timing for your question.
posted by rabidsegue at 12:11 PM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

This northern Minnesota radio station has a weekly phenology podcast, an active FB group, and most charmingly local grade schoolers report what they see through their twitter account.
posted by mcgsa at 3:01 PM on August 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

There are numerous websites that keep amateur astronomers up to date with what is happening in the night sky. Dr. Becky is one to watch on YouTube, but she also delves into current events in astronomy.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:43 AM on August 22, 2020

Local, and very specific, and a self-link, but i spent a year, every Saturday morning I was in town, over at Missouri Botanical Gardens. If you look through the pictures under that tag, you can see what it looks like year-round.
posted by notsnot at 5:41 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

This might be a little esoteric, but Window Swap will display a view out of a window somewhere in the world--https://www.window-swap.com/
posted by Calzephyr at 7:54 PM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]