Robert Marsham

Robert Marsham, a Norfolk landowner, began recording his "Indications of Spring" in 1736: the first leafing of trees, the first song of birds, frogs croaking. He kept going for over sixty years, and his descendants continued the record until 1958. The Marsham series is now one of the longest phenological records in Britain and is used by scientists to show how spring has moved earlier as the climate warms.