Punxsutawney Phil says spring will come early this year. But then that particular rodent doesn’t have a terrific record as a weather forecaster.

Historically, he has been right just 39 percent of the time, a quaint example of folk “phenology” — the art of using animal and plant behaviors to predict changes in the weather and seasons. Peasants in Germany used badgers for such forecast purpose.

Historically, plant behavior also could serve as phenological markers. Native Americans forecast planting time by the sprouting of oak leaves: to hold off until the leaves were the size of “squirrel ears.” (The ground needed to be warm enough that newly planted seed didn’t rot, yet the date as early as possible so that the corn would  mature before the frosts in fall.) And every Midwestern farmer once measured healthy corn crops if they were “knee high by the Fourth of July.”

Robert Marsham, considered the “father” of phenology research, began to keep extensive oak-leafing records in England in the 1700s. By the late 1800s, phenology research had become a national pastime in Great Britain and for 58 years, the Royal Meteorological Society organized some 600 volunteers to track plant behaviors. Currently, some 1,200 volunteers are active in a European phenology network, studies that have been invaluable for reconstructing climate patterns and documenting global warming.

Tracking  animal migration, scientists have found that climate change is causing bears to hibernate later and become active again earlier, leading to dangerous bear and human encounters as the animals try to cope with lack of adequate food supplies.Animals like sheep, cows and dogs can anticipate earthquakes. Studies of  golden-winged warblers revealed the bird’s ability to predict severe storms, as with a tornado outbreak in Tennessee.

Even amateur nature lovers can observe that frogs have distinctive “calls” prior to rain — perhaps based on an ability to detect changes in humidity. Crickets chirp faster in warming weather: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Dolbear’s Law) if you count the chirps for 15 seconds and add 40, the result will be the temperature in Fahrenheit.

On a smaller scale, what school child in the Upper Midwest hasn’t watched eagerly for the appearance of the first robins as harbingers of spring?  And in our Little Traverse gardens we measure fall’s relentless approach by the feasting monarchs as they ready themselves for their migration south.

I only know as a gardener that as the days grow longer and warmer, my own mood seems to be improving enormously. How are our new Adam the Apple Tree and Kousa dogwood surviving the waves of the freeze and thaw? Will my renewed attempts at getting wild milkweed to grow finally succeed? Given a lack of phenology research, I can only wait and hope.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Time in a Garden: Phenology in the forecast