One of the basic tenets of phenology, the awareness of what happens when in nature, is that comparisons almost always begin at home.
Since seasonal time depends on a combination of location and climate, natural history in any familiar location provides a kind of central point from which to estimate the advance or retreat of the year toward or from one’s home as well as toward or from other places.
In the same way that one can know the time of day anywhere in the world by looking at a clock on a nearby wall and referring to a map of time zones, one can know the seasonal time in other parts of the world by observing what is happening in one’s own neighborhood. Even limited travel affirms these observations. Knowing home, a person is able to assess the state of nature in visits to different locations and place them in relation to the first point of reference.
Such simple and basic comparative phenology (having a sense of what happens when in nature) enriches one’s sense of place, allows a greater feeling of the passage of time and space, offers useful information for planning trips, and allows a person to transcend the very place that is used as a marker.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for fifth week of middle summer. In the meantime, look around. Your neighborhood is the starting point for your ideas about the rest of the world.
