📜 EwA Week Highlights: Swelling Buds and Stirring Bugs

[Mike McGlathery]

EwA Highlights March 29, 2025 Hello everyone,  Thanks for reading the March 29th EwA highlights. Enjoy the stark beauty of a leafless tree's silhouette while you still can! Soon, most of those branches will disappear into the green until their reemergence in the fall. 📸 As we creep towards April, signs of spring abound. One of the more well-known signs of early spring is the male flower of the pussy willow (Salix discolor). While the furry early stage of their buds is probably what immediately comes to mind, I think they’re even more beautiful right now as the underlying flower structure starts to show through, as you can see in this photo from Sara. EwA iNaturalist Record (© gsarajg · Somerville, MA · Mar. 25, 2025)  With the seasons turning our naturalists are still hard at work recording spring phenology data on EwA Pheno Lite. When you pay close attention to these seasonal changes, you can spot some subtle ones that you’d probably miss otherwise, such as these swelling leaf buds on a pignut hickory (Carya glabra), observed by Jeanette.  EwA Pheno Lite Record (© @jeanette1 · Woburn, MA · Mar. 26, 2025)  Once again this week, the winter firefly (Ellychnia corrusca) was EwA’s most-observed species. It still doesn’t look like any mating pairs have showed up in our observations yet, but they should be coming soon! As I’ve mentioned in the past, these beetles live together on densely populated colony trees, so once they’re ready they won’t have too far to travel. An interesting winter firefly fact: one of the most widely-cited studies on their life history and behavior was conducted right here in the Boston area, at Mass Audubon's Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary. EwA iNaturalist Record (© Kristian Demary · Arlington, MA · Mar. 26, 2024)  📊 Thanks to everyone for your great biodiversity records this week, totaling 529 observations of 254 distinct species. If you’re curious about the records from this week that have been validated by the iNat community so far, you can find them » here. 🏆 Running tally: To date, we have recorded 227,455 observations of 12,370 distinct species! Check out our EwA umbrella project, see the details per site/observer, and more » here. 📅 EwA Upcoming Public Events Ewa Field Events » Check the EwA Spring [ Event details and registration » ] Don’t miss some great opportunities to follow the rhythm of the season in our local habitats and in the local wildlife! Space is limited for all our field events. Wildlife ethics is important to us and we seek to avoid putting the pressure on natural habitats which large gatherings unavoidably do. We are asking our audience to register-and-commit (or cancel when you know you can’t come) to avoid no-shows. EwA Fieldwork (and Resources) It’s a great time to join our monitoring programs. Check EwA’s Volunteer Program Calendar 📅  to know when things happen. And if a session is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to get the rendezvous location. 📅 EwA Sites Map | 🌱 Site Protocols and Guides · Field Rosters · Field Notes » All here! | ℹ️ More about EwA’s Citizen Science Program » Here ❓ Do you have any questions? Don’t be shy. Just email me or reply to this thread.  That’s all for this week—hope you have a good one! -Mike