SPRING IS ON ITS WAY IN TROMSØ, N.NORWAY
This year we had a record early snow melt in Tromsø, N.Norway (69*50'); I
have lived there now in 30 years, and only once before had the snow in my
garden disappeared before 1 May---last year when it all had melted 30
April. But this winter was snow poor---never much more than 1m on the
ground--- and April was generally mild, so lo and behold, already on 23
April the weather forecast announced that the snow depth had decreased to 0
cm. And even though the weather remained very cool the weeks afterwards,
with several mornings with fresh snow on the ground, now it really is gone,
and yesterday the last snow patch on the path to the museum through
Folkeparken turned into mud, so that now only a few ditches there are
filled with sorry looking old snow.
The vegetation is not especially early though, they react more on
temperature than on snow melt, probably. The Coltsfeet Tussilago farfara
have flowered already for weeks, and their yellow stars adorn road verges
and other worked-over areas with a profusion of flowers (more than ever
before, I have the impression, but that is probably nonsense) , while
willows flower everywhere and give shelter and pollen to the fat bumblebee
queens, that otherwise explore all holes for a suitable nesting place and
therefore often blunder into houses through ventilation openings etc. But
for the rest spring is not all that far advanced; when I walk to work
through Folkeparken, I can still see the sea (the sound, to be exact)
through all the trees, as the birches still look completely wintery. But
that won't last long and these days the Rowans (Mountain Ash) Sorbus
aucuparia are sprouting leaves, while there is also activitiy at ground
level, if you look carefully. (And things go very very quickly here,
once spring 'breaks out': we have already ca 23 hours of daylight now, and
the midnight sun is only one week away in Tromsø) . It is fun to watch how
different tactics the various plants use. Some, like the horse tails (In
Folkeparken mostly Equisetum ramosissimum) come up as stiff rods, and only
then stretch their side branches (Polyginatum verticillatum does the same),
the leaves of Alchemilla unfold like a lady's fan, while the four leaves of
the so aptly named Paris quadrifolia more or less unscrew, like an upside
down umbrella. All this has just started but in a week or two we will have
flowers galore, I dare say.
The birds arrive in waves these days. The Redwings have been here already
some time, and the Fieldfares are slowly getting in full strength, and
quarreling all over the Folkeparken. On Saturday I heard the first
Chiffchaff sing near our house, and a lone Brambling called its Dutch name
'keeep' in Folkeparken, where I also heard a far away Woodpigeon. on Sunday
there suddenly were at least two Pied Flycatchers, and later that same day
I even saw one in the garden---it did not stay, though. Yesterday there
were in the morning several singing Bramblings (their song a delight no
doubt for other Bramblings, but otherwise a not musically very inspiring
tired-sounding monotoinous rasp---not unlike the Greenfinch rasp, but they
always sound peeved, to my ears), at least three Dunnocks jingled along the
path and a Song Thrush shouted spring from the fir plantations. And in the
afternoon when a rain front had come in from the south east (where also our
migrant songbirds arrive from) the whole Folkeparken was suddenly full of
Bramblings, with hundreds flying around, and tens rasping away in the rain.
I have also seen the first Woodcock fly over, although I have not yet heard
it roding. Today a Pied Flycatcher sings around the museum, and our local
birders email list is full of notices that everybody got theirs back this
last weekend. So now we wait for the first Willow Warbler, really the
foremost musical voice of spring here, where the Bluethroats have had to
give way to people, dogs and cats (there are plenty of these fantastic
birds around a bit further afield still, fortunately)
Wim Vader,
Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø,
Norway
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