birding-aus

Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:49:19 +0100

To: <>
Subject: Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:49:19 +0100
From: "Wim Vader" <>
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:50:32 +1100 (EST)

                                                AUTUMN SNIPPETS FROM 70*N

Today, late october, we have a brisk southwesterly wind here in Tromsø, 
N.Norway, severe rain showers and a temperature of 12*C, in short typical 
autumn weather. But only two days ago everything looked completely dofferent, 
for a week we had beautifil winter weather, a few degrees frost, 5-6 inches of 
snow, all postcard pretty. In the course of the last two days the temperature 
has risen 20*C, and all the fresh snow has disappeared even from the 
surrounding hillsides. So we are back to where we started from; this entire 
autumn has basically been wet, wild and mild here, with more than double the 
average precipitation in September, and 55 days of consecutive rain (Not all 
the time of course, but such that there was some rain on every day. meanwhile 
each day has inexorably ten minutes less daylight than the day before; just now 
the sun is already pretty low in the southern skies at noon, and disappears 
below the horizon at c 3 30 pm.

There are not all that many landbirds to report on in late autumn in Tromsø; in 
my garden Hooded Crows and Black-billed Magpies absolutely dominate, together 
with gangs of largely greyish young Greenfinches, that are attracted to my 
hanging feeder with mainly sunflower seeds. One of the family of magpies that 
nested in a garden across the street last summer, and that still seems to keep 
together, has amazingly learned to feed from the hanging tube-feeder, although 
not for long leriods at a time. It clings acrobatically to the tube, and 
extracts the seeds one by one, like a grossly overgrown chickadee. There are 
real chickadees also in the garden, the large and showy yellowish Parus major  
(the Kjøttmeis)and the neat black-and-white P. montanus(the Granmeis). You will 
all need to learn the Norwegian names of these nice tame feisty birds, because 
if I use the english names, my mails get refused 'because it contains 
obscenity' or even 'blasphemy', or when I am very lucky, they get sent out with 
two or three red peppers. I have been severely bowled out by somebody at a 
Welsh boys school for 'corrupting the minds of innocent young boys', and that 
all because the members of the Paridae in Europe have the English name t*i*t, 
and many filters clearly automatically and unintelligently react to this word 
in whatever meaning it may appear

OK, Kjøttmeis and Granmeis are also common in my garden and feed from my 
feeder, and now and then I have one or two House Sparrows as well, also a new 
development. Earlier this autumn, as every year, large flocks of thrushes, 
Fieldfares and Redwings came to raid the Sorbus (Mountain Ash or Rowan) 
berries; this year there were also quite a number of Starlings among 
them---maybe our campaign (I know, hard to understand to overseas people) to 
put out nestboxes for starlings, in order to try to stem their serious decrease 
in our region, has born some fruit. Day before yesterday I walked to the shop, 
down the hill from our house (which lies at c 45m a.s.l.), and was very much 
surprised to find a few trees chockfull of Bohemian Waxwings, there must have 
been at least 200. We have these tame, beautiful fruiteaters almost every 
autumn here in Tromsø, but this time there must have been a very large influx, 
as I have seen several large flocks fly over my house the last few days. 
Usually one finds these birds by their cheery trilling calls, but this flock 
was absolutely silent; I watched them quite some time, from very close, as they 
were as tame as they always are, but I didn't hear any sound at all!

My walk through the Folkeparken, a very muddy affair these days, goes now 
through a  silent and bare forest. I haven't even heard any Bullfinches for 
weeks. The only sounds one hears are the chattering of the  magpies, and the 
calls of some Great Black-backed Gull flying over. Oddly enough I have not yet 
heard any Ravens here either. So this time a year is a good time to bring ones 
record up to date, and to follow the birding exploits of others. Most years my 
year list comes to a full stop somewhere in October, unless we'll have a late 
influx of Pine Grosbeaks, as happens some years.

                                                                           Wim 
Vader, Tromsø Museum
                                                                            
9037 Tromsø, Norway
                                                                           

--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is now on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message 'unsubscribe
birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to 

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:49:19 +0100, Wim Vader <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU