Spring is on its way 2008!

Spring doesn’t begin everywhere at the same time. It spreads over Europe as a wave of blossoms and birdsongs, all the way from Spain to Norway, passing midway through Belgium.

The Belgian National Focal Point to the Convention on Biological Diversity offers you the opportunity to participate at creating a map showing the spring wave in Europe.

This project is an initiative of the German online multimedia youth project ‘Naturdetektive’, that has been recording special events in nature since 1998. This year Naturdetektive goes European for the third year! Several authorities throughout Europe are working together to make this project available to all Europeans. The Belgian National Focal Point to the Convention on Biological Diversity coordinates the action in Belgium.

This year the project focuses on four events: the day when the first wood anemone blooms, the day when the first cuckoo calls and the first and the last sightings of a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) and a common swift.

Everybody is welcome to indicate her or his observations on a map of Europe on the Naturdetektive website (this website is available in seven European languages).

Thanks to all these observations, it will be possible to, with the aide of the public, map the arrival of spring.

Please note that this information has expired.