WALKING THE WINTER ISLAND-WALK IN MIDSUMMER (TROMSØ,
70*N)
As many of you may recall, I often walk in winter from my home along the
coast of the Sandnessund---one of the two sounds surrounding the island of
Tromsøya--- to the airport situated about halfway along the west coast of
the island. (I live not too far from the south point, but also on the west
side), to watch all the seabords that winter onthe sound here. Now I
thought it might be fun to do the same walk in a much less promising
season, midsummer. There is still midnight sun here (for another week or
so), and we have been blessed with nice and often sunny summer weather ,
which we enjoy maybe more than most people, because up here it does not
always happen. Temperatures rose above 20*C both yesterday and Friday, but
today is a cooler day: Easterly winds bring the warm weather here, but
these cause fog to form when they blow over the cold sea, and a westerly
draught may later waft this fog and low clouds inland again, always a
'clear and present danger' here during warm periods, especially near the
coast where we live. But it still is maybe 13-14*C, and little wind
(although enough to make the sound a grey ribbed opaque, without any mirror
effects), so quite pleasant.
I started out through Folkeparken. Midsummer is a time of little bird
activity: earlier this week at least the willow Warblers were still in
almost full song, and a newly arrived Song Thrush shouted its messages from
the fir trees. But today even the Willow Warblers are largely silent, and
when I stop and listen in the birch forest, I only hear and see a scolding
Fieldfare (which thought I stopped to harm its fledged young, no doubt),
and the trills of the now again ubiquitous Greenfinches, mixed with the dry
rattles of the Redpolls, now probably the most common bird in the forest
here (and in fact all day). All the others play hooky, although I know they
must be there.
The forest itself is preparing for the last summer wave of flowers, mostly
1-2m high forbs, but here they have just not yet sprung out; we'll find
them in flower along the sea shore later. The storkbills still flower
richly, but the violet carpet nevertheless is getting slightly moth-eaten ;
more than half of the flowers have already been transformed into the
eponymous stork-bill seeds. So now the forest floor in fact mainly looks
green, for a little while. Newcomers here are the two half-parasites, the
Cow-wheat species, the very pale yellow Melampyrum arvense and the deep
yellow M. pratense.
Along the shore of the sound there is a main road, Kavløyvegen, following
the shore, with a foot and bicycle path (on the side away from the shore,
unfortunately). On this first stretch there used to nest Curlews and
lapwings, and a Curlew always stood guard on one of the lampposts all
summer. Now more than 500 houses have been built here, and while that was
good news for our neighbourhood grocer, it was bad news for the birds, and
most of the shorebirds have given up. As everywhere along these stony
shores, Oystercatchers do nest, and their frenetic alarm calls follow me
all morning, together with the wailing shrieks of the Common Gulls, that
also nest everywhere on the fields here. Fallow fields now sport the famous
Tromsø Palm, a gigantic Hogweed (originally from Central Asia), and now so
common in town that it has become one of its logos; they grow up to 2-4 m
high in the course of a few months before they unfold their white
umbrellas, which attract large numbers of hover-flies. The Tromsø Palms are
very beautiful, but not entirely innocent (and thus maybe a good logo for
our town): not only do they not tolerate other plants nearby and are very
hard to eradicate from your garden, but they also, in combination with
sunlight , can cause allergy and large blisters on people who get the juice
from the stalks on them.
Many tall grasses and a large uncouth Sorrel (another hopeless invader in
one's garden) further dominate empty lots and fallow fields, but along the
road verges the vegetation is much more colourful, and for the first time
this season no longer absolutely dominated by yellow flowers. The
Birdsfoot Trefoil Lotus is over its first bloom, and although another
yellow Papilionaceae, the Meadow Vetchling Lathyrus pratensis, takes over
in quite large numbers, it gets many competitors: White and Red Clover, and
several vetches, mostly V. cracca and V. sepium. And in unmowed arreas and
ditches 'the flowers of the last wave of summer' stand ready and a few are
already in bloom: the Fireweed (Rosebay Willow-herb), that will colour
large parts of Norway's road sides and clearings violet within a few weeks,
the Meadow-sweet (The Mead-wort in Norwegian, Mjødurt) Filipendula ulmaria,
that also can occur in large patches, the Blue Sow Thistle Cicerbita
alpina, a sort of wild salad ---and also edible---with its sky-blue
flowers, and a few species that occur more as singles or small groups, the
miltary looking somewhat oddly named Melancholy Thistle Cirsium
helenioides, and the still more unexpectedly named Jack Jump-About Angelica
sylvestris, a close relative of the Tromsø Palm. I even saw the first
yellow rods of the Goldenrod Solidago virgaurea, for me one of the typical
summer-is-over-its-height plants.
A bit further on along the road the Park people have made a number of paths
, and a picnic table (where a Redwing forages for his family). Here I find
a wet area full of large and handsome orchids (Dactylorchis sp.) with
flower-stands up to six inches tall, together with the shining white Grass
of Parnassus Parnassia palustris, and another half-parasite, what my
family calls Money grass, the yellow Rattler Rhinanthus minor (common in
ditches and along roads on the island). There are also large numbers of the
insect eating Common Butterwort Pinguicula vulgaris here, but most of its
elegant violet flowers have already come and gone---the seasons hasten
along, here at 70*N!. Redpolls are dominant also here, but I also find a
mixed flock of tits, Great and Willow Tit, and a Brambling alarms hoarsely.
On the sound there are this time of year very few birds to be seen, apart
from Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, and Common Eiders, some females
with young, the males already moulting and in all kinds of peculiar garbs.
Oystercatchers and Hooded Crows , and the odd Starling, make up the balance
of the shore dwellers, at least before one comes to the formerly famous
mudflats of Langnes, where the airport and the roadworks have now destroyed
most of the area.
I am clearly old enough by now to be sensitive for the 'In my youth
everything was better' syndrome, and I can hardly walk here without rueing
the disappearance of the Temminck's Stints that use to display there, and
of the fighting Ruffs, and.. and.... But that is of course
counterproductive: We should rather look for what is still present, and not
disappear so far down Memory Lane, that I almost overlook the Lapwing that
still helds out in this bight, the Redshanks that are alarming from the
Barbed-wire fence of the airport, or the shrieking and alarming Arctic
terns (birds that one overlooks at one's peril, as they can be painfully
aggressive). On the little beach that is left besides the new road I find
not only White Wagtails with young and the usual shrieking Oystercatchers,
Redshanks and Common Gulls, but also a pair of Turnstones (I can't get
enough of their stuttering alarm call) , and even two pairs of Ringed
Plovers. One pair has already fledged young, but the parent still flies
after the small young everywhere, and then elaborately goes through his/her
entire 'Oh, I'm so sick, I have a broken leg and a broken wing, and
ooooooh......' routine. Then I come too close, the young fly on a bit , and
the parent miraculously 'unsicks', flies after them and starts the whole
routine anew!! A Grey Heron flies past on hollow wings, reminding me that
there also have been positive developmentts here: When I arrived in Tromsø
in 1973, this was a rare stray, and now they are common nesters on the
island (In fact, also the now so common Greenfinches have arrived here
since 1973).
I hear a faraway Raven croak, and just when I enter the airport for the
Sunday newspapers, a Sand Martin (Bank Swallow) flies over, another timely
reminder that 'life goes on': The colony near the airport was destroyed by
the road works, but the birds have clearly found other opportunities
elsewhere. A very normal day on the island, with few birds and many but
common flowers, but what a pleasure!!
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
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