Season's Greetings & Thank You
Alex Marshall and Judith Garforth, 13/12/2024
Holly amount of fruit. Credit: Nature's Calendar recorder
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Nature’s Calendar this year. As we approach the end of 2024, we’d like to wish you all season’s greetings and a very happy new year.
We really appreciate the time you have taken to observe and record the timing of the changing seasons throughout the past year.
Your observations have been vital in tracking nature’s response to weather events this year; the UK’s warmest May on record, the wettest September for some counties, and a noticeable lack of sunshine at the beginning of November! To find out more, read our seasonal analysis of Spring 2024 (spoiler alert – there were several record breakers!).
The records submitted this year add to a long history of records kept over several decades in the UK. This allows us to track nature’s response to climate change (as well as the weather each year). The Spring Index, published this month (December 2024), suggests that Spring is now over a week earlier (on average) than during the first part of the 20th century. Your records also show that a long-term trend is starting to be apparent for earlier hazel flowering as published in the State of the UK Climate report.
Here are a few of your wintery photos from recently submitted records:
We hope you continue to add records to Nature’s Calendar in 2025 and inspire friends and family to take part too. The first hazel flowers of ‘Spring 2025’ have already been spotted in Somerset on 5th December. Will we have a mild December with frogspawn being spotted before the new year? Let us know!
Exciting changes are coming in 2025.
We are working hard behind the scenes to improve your experience of volunteering for Nature’s Calendar. In 2025 we will be introducing a new volunteer platform called Assemble. On this platform you will be able to:
- read project updates and newsletters
- take part in a Nature’s Calendar forum with other volunteers
- learn about wider volunteering news and opportunities from across the Woodland Trust.
Thanks again and here’s to another year!
With warm wishes,
Judith, Kate and Alex.
We would also like to thank players of the People’s Postcode Lottery for supporting Nature’s Calendar!
