NOTE: The talk will be in or immediately adjacent to the Taconic State Park, Copake Falls, NY, where the walk will take place. Registrants will be emailed with precise talk location, depending on group size.  

EVER WONDER what determines when flowers bloom, or leaves unfurl? When butterflies emerge from cocoons, or peepers peep, or when trees drop their leaves? Insights can be found in the science of phenology—often referred to as “nature’s clock” or “nature’s calendar”—a new and developing research area that’s proving a promising development for ecology.

Phenology is the study of recurring life-cycle stages among plants and animals, and of their timing and relationships with weather and climate—not just “trilliums opened today,” but what else co-occurred with that event.

Join Victoria Kelly, Environmental Monitoring Program Manager at the renown Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, for an introductory talk on telling time by nature’s clock, followed by a guided walk to explore the interconnected lifecycles of plants and animals.

Vicky’s work establishing a Phenology Trail at Cary inspired Friends of Taconic State Park to make a trail in 2016 in the Park’s Copake Falls area, in collaboration with Park Manager Chris Rickard. Along the trail with Vicky’s help, we’ll learn to be keener and more objective observers of nature.

Plus: Learn how becoming citizen scientists, by recording and sharing observations of our own as individuals or as part of a group, can help scientists understand a changing climate.

1 PM talk and refreshments, followed by phenology walk. This event is part of ongoing programming about our natural and cultural history by the Friends of Taconic State Park.