UNEXPECTED BIRDS IN AN URBAN SETTING IN TROMSØ, N.NORWAY
My home town of Tromsø in N.Norway is situated on the island of Tromsøya, which
is about 6km long and is placed on the sill of the large Balsfjord. The
surrounding hills are quite tall--Tromsdaltinden is c 1250m high---but the
island itself is not all that high, with the highest point less than 100m above
sea level. The town has grown apace during the last decades and now counts some
65 000 inhabitants, which makes it the largest town in Northern Scandinavia
(The area as a whole is very sparsely populated).
The island of Tromsøya is by now pretty urbanized and the little lake of
Prestvannet (=the priest's lake) on top of the island is nowadays completely
surrounded by housing, although the lake still has a fringe of birch forest and
some marshland. The name signifies that the lake belonged to the church; it was
formed several centuries ago by damming some small rivulets and inundating a
marsh land, and was in earlier times i.a. used as a source of ice for the ice
houses that preceded our modern fridges and iceboxes. The monks also put out
Crucian Carp Carassius into Prestvannet, and the fish are still there hundreds
of years later, constituting, as far as i know, the northernmost viable
population of this fish species in the world. And we use it as a skating rink
in winter.
In modern times the Prestvannet is surrounded by a criss cross of footpaths,
sitting banks, pinic spots, etc, and is much used by people going on tours,
jogging (the track around is almost exactly one english mile long), and
families with children feeding the ducks. There are many Mallards nesting in
the marshy areas around the lake (I saw the first ducks with small young this
morning, Whitsunday) , and there are also quite a number of pairs of Tufted
Ducks, which by now are as tame and as eager for crumbs as the mallards are.
There is, moreover fierce competition for the handouts , by feral pigeons,
which are always present here, and by the Common Gulls that have a largish
colony in the marshland around, and which are generally much less popular with
the visitors than the ducks are.
In addition to the gulls---usually a few Herring Gulls and the odd Great
Black-backed Gull also hang round here--- there are still more terns. This is
one of the most constant and maybe also largest colonies of Arctic Terns in the
area, and there are most years also some Conmmon Terns among them. They don't
beg for food, but catch their own (the lake holds sticklebacks Gasterosteus ,
in addition to the Crucian Carp), and they are fortunately somewhat habituated
to the many people, so that there are not too many problems with too aggressive
terns just here----elsewhere in N.Norway the Arctic Terns can be extremely
aggressive and easily draw blood from your scalp. This morning there were also
tens of Sand Martins (Bank Swallows) hunting low over the water, as so often on
cool and grey days; they nest elsewhere further north on the island.
The birch forest around the lake holds the normal song birds for here. Willow
Warblers dominate, but also the scolding Fieldfares and the rasping Bramblings
are common, Pied Flycatchers sing everywhere from the surrounding gardens,
where people have put up nest boxes for them, and there are also Kjøttmeis
Parus major, White Wagtails and Dunnocks. Surprisingly, I heard not a single
Redwing this morning, nor were there Greenfinches, maybe because the birch wood
here has no spruce plantations. In the forest there are now many twinkling
yellow violets Viola biflora and in the marshy areas the white flowers of the
Cloudberry Rubus chamaemorus are everywhere.
Nowadays there are few nesting shorebirds left in the area; too many cats and
loose dogs, I'm afraid (although they are not officially permitted here). There
used to be Ruffs here, and there are still Redshanks, but the other species are
by now usually only seen on migration.
But we have had most interesting newcomers the last years, a sign that the
people of Tromsø still treat their urban lake with due respect. Since a number
of years Red-throated Loons have discovered the area, and now every year there
are 3 or 4 nesitng pairs, an amazing concentration on such a small and shallow
lake. They nest on mud banks that stick up here and there and which they
usually share with the terns, and there is still regularly a lot of displaying
and calling going on, by a species which otherwise has the reputation of being
a rather shy bird. Here they lie dozing close to the shore, and do not bother
at all about the many people walking around and feeding the ducks. The loons
themselves get much of their food from elsewhere, I surmise; they may even
continue to fish in saltwater in the nesting season..
This spring we got a new surprise! A week ago somebody reported no less than 5
Little Gulls Larus minutus on Prestvannet, where we hardly ever had seen any
before. This is a species that is clearly on the increase in N.Scandinavia,
especially in N.Finland and N. Sweden. But also in N.Norway there are many
nesting cases during the last years; there is a sizeable colony in the Pasvik
river, the border river with Russia in extreme NE.Norway, and the last years
Little Gulls have also nested in Storfjord, in the inner part of Troms county,
not too far from the border with Finland. Still, all these localities are
typical inland localities, and it was a great surprise to find them prospecting
in Prestvannet, almost in town. Of course, they may decide to move on after
all, after a few days there were only two left, and this morning I saw with
certaintly only one, tirelessly patroling the lake and now and then picking up
snmall items, probably midge larvae from the surface. But somebody else saw the
two prospecting for nest sites yesterday, so we can still hope that the other
bird was already sitting. Time will show. At any rate this was a most welcome
surprise!
Wim
Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037
Tromsø, Norway
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
=============================
|
