Night light did not delay autumn leaf colour in US phenology records in 2009-2025; earlier spring leaf-out at bright sites followed regional, not local, light after site and observer controls

Meng et al. (2022) reported from USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) records of 2011-2016 that artificial light at night made breaking leaf buds 8.9 days earlier and colored leaves 6.0 days later at bright sites. We tested these claims again with up to 61,490 spring and 55,383 autumn onset records of deciduous broadleaf plants at 9,543 conterminous US sites in 2009-2025. We used harmonized night-light DN, GHSL built-up land and Daymet temperature. We added location (2-degree cell), species-by-year, built-up, observer and 7-day visit-bracket controls in steps, in two periods (2011-2016 and 2017-2025) and two regions. The Meng-type model gave a colouring delay in both periods (+1.7 and +1.9 days per ln unit of light), but built-up control removed it (2009-2025: -0.01 days, SE 0.74), and with all controls colouring was earlier at bright sites (-2.0, SE 0.8). Bright eastern sites had earlier leaf buds in both periods, but all controls reduced the slope by about two thirds (-2.2 to -0.74 days, SE 0.30). The West had the opposite sign (+3.6, SE 1.3). In the East, light averaged over 9 km predicted the spring advance (-0.93, SE 0.40) but local light above that mean did not (-0.36, SE 0.26), and American beech, the most day-length-sensitive genus, had no slope (-0.4, SE 0.6). The raw top-quartile spring contrast for 2011-2016 was -1.5 days (95% bootstrap -4.3 to +1.5), not -8.9. These results agree with urban heat or urban planting, not a direct light effect at km scale. Limitations: the light DN saturates at the brightest sites, the units differ from the radiance of Meng et al., there is no direct urban-heat measurement, and street-lamp-scale exposure is not resolved.