MILD WINTER IN TROMSØ, N.NORWAY, AT 70*N
As I wrote before, the winter 2003/2004 had hitherto been generally an easy
one in Tromsø, with quite stable weather, light to moderate frosts most of
the time, and a snow cover from 2 to 4 feet, a little less than normal and
a quite comfortable amount. But from mid February the Atlantic depressions
have found us, we have had periods of thaw and rain (and even some
floodings), oscillating with blizzards bringing fresh snow; and now a
strong high pressure area lies south of us, and again leads quite mild
Atlantic air to our region. Fortunately this air is not quite as mild and
especially not quite as humid as what we had before, and this weekend,
after a week of drizzle and considerable snow melt, the weather has been
quite pleasant, with sun yesterday and partly cloudy today, with
nightfrost, but degrees plus during the day, and with as only minus factor
a thin and chilly wind.
Lots of people walked the paths today, and many parked cars on Kvaløya
showed where families had gone skiing (I remember these children-friendly
hills well from when our kids were small). Also in the intertidal people
wandered around, but there there is still a lot of ice, most shallow bights
are a wilderness of ice, and although the fields close to shore often have
become partly snow-free in the course of last week, there is much ice there
too, and the ground is iron-hard frozen. The hills around gleam in the
sunshine, much more even than usual in winter, because the intermittent
thawing and freezing has created a ice-crust on top of the snow, and that
reflects the sun very strongly. By now , so close to the spring equinox,
our days are once again about as long as yours, wherever you live.
On land nothing much has changed, apart from the decreasing snow level.
Maybe the Greenfinches are a little more numerous and active, and maybe I
hear the Bullfinches' whistles more often, but even that may mainly be
wishful thinking. (The person who phoned in, and said he had heard the
first Brambling sing near his house, almost certainly suffered from this
affliction; Bramblings won't be hear for many weeks as yet, and he surely
must have heard the greenfinches rasp and thought is was a brambling;
greenfinches are comparative newcomers here, and people still have problems
recognizing them. The same goes for another newcomer, the Grey Heron: two
phone calls this week, one about 'a very strange goose', the other about 'a
non-black cormorant' could both after further questioning be reduced to not
all that well seen Grey Herons, and the local newspaper, also this week,
told about 'the first heron of this year', not realizing that these birds
are residents here and are around all winter.)
I visited some of my old haunts today, to see what there was to see. At the
Langnes airport , the lost bird paradise which I have written about
previously, the normal suspects were present. In the sound groups of Common
Eiders, Long-tailed Ducks and Common Scoters foraged and dove, most larger
groups with their attendant kleptoparasitic large Gulls (Herring and Great
Black-backed Gulls), while Red-throated Mergansers looked attentively down
in the water, searching for the small fish they live on. The skerry off
Langnes was as usual in winter festooned with loafing and 'wing-drying'
Great Cormorants, and Hooded Crows are the normal winter shorebirds here. A
single Curlew does not really count as a sign of coming spring, as every
winter a few of these large shorebirds winter in our area. But a lone
Common Gull was the first I saw here this year. (I would see two more later
on the day)
Next I drove the 30 km north to the Kvalsund, the sound between the large
islands of Kvaløy and Ringvassøy. There is a strong current here, and this
may be one of the reasons why there are always many wintering birds ; it is
i.a. a reliable spot to find flocks of King Eiders among the many hundreds
of Common Eiders. That is: 'It is usually a reliable spot', but this time I
saw only a few, I don't know why. But birders are never disappointed for
long. I discovered several Razorbills flying back and forth among the
always present Black Guillemots, a White-tailed Sea Eagle sat far out on a
skerry, and the highlight of the day came when I suddenly discovered black
dorsal fins sticking out intermittently near the opposite side of the
sound: a tight flock of ca 15-20 small whales. They were too large (and too
many) to be our Common Porpoise, which is an uncommon resident in the
fjords up here, but I can not say for sure what they may have been; my
guess is Long-finned Pilot Whales Globicephalus melaena, which are seen
here now and then.
The shallow bights of Rakfjord and Trondjord were still completley
ice-covered , and the nearby wetlands, so fantastic in summer, now an icy
wasteland. At Rakfjord pairs of large gulls had already returned to their
nesting area, and they banded together to attack a young sea eagle that
flew over, the rich tuneful sounds of the Herring Gulls mingling with the
much gruffer voice of the Great Black-back. The eagle was forced down on
the middle of a large icefield, where it sat somewhat forlornly---the gulls
let it be, with an occasional scolding overpass, as long as it just sat
still. I discovered a young cinnamon-brownish Iceland Gull (which we call
Greenland Gull up here) in the gull flock (it did not take part in the
eagle baiting fun); every winter we have a few of those up here. A lone
Purple Sandpiper flashed back and forth over the bight, no doubt searching
its companions; they are almost always in flocks. A Grey Heron stood aloof
on the shore, looking as usual as if thinking deep heron thoughts :Where is
my fish?, no doubt.
Finally I drove to the other side of Kvaløya, to my favourite wetlands of
Tisnes. As I expected, it was much chillier there---the wind was on the
shore, and there were whitecaps on the fjord---, and the area made a bleak
and definitely wintery impression, although also here much snow had
disappeared and several reindeer were grazing the meadows. These look not
all that impressive in winter, without their horns---in my opinion reindeer
have anyway a little bit a 'designed by a committee' look; the proportions
just do not seem entirely right to me. Very few birds here as yet, and the
only ones worth of notice were the four Kittiwakes struggling against the
wind over the sound; I do not see them all that often so far inland (away
from their Ullsfjord colony, that is). The Herring Gulls scolded me when I
walked along the shore here; maybe that can be seen as a sign of the coming
spring?
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
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