The
purpose of this feature is to give scout leaders, educators and naturalists an
idea of some of the natural events coming up each month. We will try to
cover a variety of natural events ranging from sky events to calling periods of
amphibians, bird and mammal watching tips, prominent wildflowers and
anything else that comes to mind. We will also note prominent
constellations appearing over the eastern horizon at mid-evening each month for
our area for those who would like to learn the constellations. If you have
suggestions for other types of natural information you would like to see added
to this calendar, let us know!
Though we link book references to nationwide sources, we encourage you to
support your local book store whenever possible.
Notes From February 2023
The Cloudland
Pond in Winter
February was a difficult month for me this year. I had to sell the house in which I grew up. We moved to the house on
Black Oak Ridge when I was eight years old. The house sold as soon as I
put it on the market, leaving me with little time to find places for decades of
memories. I had help from some
very good people in my life, and from the solace I always find in the
natural world. I spent several nights out beside my pond listening for
early frog and toad songs, and ran my
Tennessee Amphibian Monitoring Program listening route along Fiery
Gizzard Creek.
Calling
Pickerel Frog - Note the side vocal sacs
The unseasonably warm temperatures at the end of February
triggered some very early records of calling Pickerel Frogs. A decade or
two ago, we never heard the long drawn-out "yeeowwww..."
call of Pickerel Frogs
much before the first of April. This has changed. At my pond in Cloudland
the last few years, they have called as early as the first of March.
This year, for the first time, I heard them calling in February.
February 20th was a warm night, and I was listening to a loud group of
Upland Chorus Frogs, Spring Peepers, American Toads and Southern Leopard
Frogs. Then, quite faint, I heard the long snoring sound of a Pickerel
Frog from the opposite shore. I slowly approached it and made a recording.
Later that week, two volunteers from the Tennessee Amphibian
Monitoring Program (TAMP) had Pickerel Frogs calling on their listening
routes! This is the first time this species has been recorded by TAMP
volunteers in February.
You have to be careful in identifying calling
Pickerel Frogs because they sound a little bit like the croak that
Southern Leopard Frogs intersperse with their typical rhythmic clucking
call. Frog and toad choruses this time of year can be quite loud, and you
have to cultivate a knack for listening in the quiet gaps for the fainter
Pickerel Frog snore.
This recording
was made by TAMP volunteer Melody Holt on February 25th. In it you can
hear Southern Leopard Frogs both clucking and croaking, the Pickerel
Frog's snores, and the high-pitched "peep!" of Spring Peepers. You can
also compare Southern Leopard Frog croaks with Pickerel Frog's snore in
the TAMP "Similar Sounding Species" (Module Two) of the
Online TAMP Workshop. Pickerel Frogs often call from beneath the
water's surface.
While all of this is exciting, it is also concerning. The environment's
response to climate change can threaten some species in ways that are
difficult to anticipate. Nature is a competition, and the arrival of new
species in a particular habitat can threaten existing species. Green Treefrogs,
a species traditionally native to the West Tennessee, have exploded across
the state and have reached the treatment ponds at Cade's Cove. Will they
outcompete species like Cope's Gray Treefrog? Will colder weather species
like Wood Frogs and Pickerel Frogs be threatened by warming temperatures?
Time will tell.
Sky Events for March 2023
The Spring Equinox for the Northern Hemisphere occurs on March 20th at
5:24 EDT.
Morning Sky:
Saturn will appear in the morning sky the third week in March and
you may be able to use the waning crescent Moon to find it. The
sky will be pretty bright, so binoculars will probably be
necessary to see it. Start Looking for the Moon about 30 minutes
before sunrise on March 19th. Once you locate it, look for Saturn
about 5 degrees above and to the left of the Moon. A flat eastern
horizon will also help.
Evening Sky:
Jupiter, May 8th, 2013. 20" Newtonian Reflector and ZWO ASI
120MMS camera.
Bright Venus is climbing higher and higher into the western sky
after sunset this month. Jupiter is gradually getting lower in the
western sky, and the two planets will approach to within about a
half of a degree on March 1st! Look for the two planets
about 30 minutes after sunset. Jupiter will slip into the twilight
glow before the end of the month, but before it does you can use
it to locate Mercury in the twilight after sunset. On March 27th
they are less than 1.5 degrees apart. They will be in bright
twilight, which means you'll probably need binoculars to pick them
out.
Mars is due south in the early evening above and to the left of Aldebaran in
Taurus, but it's drawing away from Earth and its apparent diameter
is only around 8 seconds of an arc, making surface details more
difficult to see.
Constellations:
Messier 1, the
Crab Nebula, December 12th & 13th, 2015, 12.5 Inch Newtonian
Reflector and
SBIG ST2000XCM camera, Total exposure time 3 hours, 10 minutes.
The views below show the sky looking east at 10:00 p.m. EDT on March 15th. The first view
shows the sky with the constellation outlines and names depicted.
Star and planet names are in green. Constellation names are in blue.
The second view shows the same scene without labels.
The bright star Arcturus, in Bootes, the Herdsman, makes its
appearance this month in the early evening sky, a sure sign that Spring is here. Virgo clears the horizon this month
along with Corvus, the Crow. The area
of sky encompassing Leo, Virgo and Como Berenices marks the heart of the great Virgo cluster of galaxies.
In the early morning hours Virgo will have risen high enough in the sky to
search for the many bright galaxies that are in this region.
Messier 104,
in southern Virgo just above Corvus, is one of the easier galaxies to spot in
binoculars. Even so, you will need a dark and moonless night to be
successful.
It will not look like it does in long exposure photographs. It will appear
as a small faint colorless blur.
Messier 1, The Crab Nebula, is high in the sky this month and can sometimes
be spotted in binoculars in a location away from city lights. In larger
telescopes you can visually make out the part of the nebula that appears
whitish in the above image. To me it looks to me like a giant rabbit grazing in
some cosmic field of grass. The faint red and blue tendrils are visible only
large telescopes in very dark skies.
The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a stellar explosion that was noted by
Chinese astronomers in the year 1054. The star collapsed to a rapidly
spinning neutron star, and pulsar. It spins at a rate of 30
revolutions per second. Distance to the nebula is 6,500 light-years
from Earth. For more on the crab nebula, including finder charts and a
great
interview with pulsar discoverer Jocelyn Bell Burnell, click
here.
The object is number one in 18th century French comet hunter Charles
Messier's catalog of objects which might be confused with comets. In
describing the appearance of the crab nebula, Messier said, "This nebula
had such a resemblance to a comet, in its form and brightness, that I
endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would not confuse these
same nebulae with comets just beginning to shine." Messier ending up
cataloging some of the most beautiful galaxies, nebulae and star clusters
in the sky.
March 15th, 10:00pm EDT, Looking East
March 15th, 10:00pm EDT, Looking East
On Learning the
Constellations:
We advise learning a few constellations each month, and then following them
through the seasons. Once you associate a particular constellation coming
over the eastern horizon at a certain time of year, you may start thinking about
it like an old friend, looking forward to its arrival each season. The
stars in the evening scene above, for instance, will always be in the same place
relative to the horizon at the same time and date each March. Of course,
the planets do move slowly through the constellations, but with practice you
will learn to identify them from their appearance. In particular, learn
the brightest stars (Like Arcturus and Denebola in the above scene looking
east), for they will guide you to the fainter stars. Once you can locate
the more prominent constellations, you can "branch out" to other constellations
around them. It may take you a little while to get a sense of scale, to
translate what you see on the computer screen or what you see on the page of a
book to what you see in the sky. Look for patterns,
like the stars of Corvus the Crow.
The earth's rotation
causes the constellations to appear to move across the sky just as the sun and
the moon appear to do. If you go outside earlier than the time shown on
the charts, the constellations will be lower to the eastern horizon. If
you observe later, they will have climbed higher.
As each
season progresses, the earth's motion around the sun causes the constellations
to appear a little farther towards the west each night for any given time of
night. The westward motion of the constellations is equivalent to two
hours per month.
A good book to learn the constellations is
Patterns in the Sky, by Hewitt-White.
For sky watching tips, an inexpensive good guide is
Secrets of Stargazing, by Becky Ramotowski.
A good general reference book on astronomy is the Peterson
Field Guide,
A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, by Pasachoff. The book retails for around $14.00.
The Virtual
Moon Atlas is a terrific way to learn the
surface features of the Moon. And it's free software. You can
download the Virtual Moon Atlas here.
Apps:
The Sky Safari 6 basic version is free and a great aid for
the beginning stargazer. I really love the
Sky Safari 6 Pro. Both are available for iOS and
Android operating systems. There are three versions. The Pro is
simply the best astronomy app I've ever seen.
The description of the Pro version reads, "includes over 100 million stars, 3 million galaxies
down to 18th magnitude, and 750,000 solar system objects; including every comet
and asteroid ever discovered."
You may also want to try the very beautiful app
Sky Guide.
Though not as data intensive as Sky Safari, Sky Guide goes all out
to show the sheer beauty of the night sky.
Great for locating the planets.
A
nother
great app is the Photographer's
Ephemeris. Great for finding sunrise, moonrise, sunset and
moonset times and the precise place on the horizon that the event will
occur. Invaluable not only for planning photographs, but also nice
to plan an outing to watch the full moon rise. Available for both
androids and iOS operating systems.
Amphibians:
Southern Leopard Frog
The unseasonable high temperatures in the last part of February
made for some interesting observations. This year I've heard Upland
Chorus Frogs, Spring Peepers,American Toads,
Southern Leopard Frogs
and
Pickerel Frogsall calling in February! At least one TAMP
volunteer heard Wood Frog on his listening route earlier in
February.
In West Tennessee, TAMP volunteers will be listening for Crawfish Frogs
to give their loud snoring calls. Remember that on mild nights you may find frogs and toads out foraging that you
do not hear until later in the season. On warm days in March listen for early treefrogs, like
Cope's Gray Treefrog,
and for early Eastern Cricket Frogs.
Nature Notes Archives: Nature Notes
was a page we published in 2001 and 2002 containing our observations about
everything from the northern lights display of November 2001 to frog and
salamander egg masses.
Night scenes prepared with The
Sky Professional from Software Bisque
