EARLY WINTER IN TROMSØ, NORTHERN NORWAY (70*N)
After several autumns with mild weather until far into December, this year has
been different. The first snow arrived already medio October, but that happens
in most years. The difference is that this year this was not followed by an
inrush of Atlantic mild air and rain. Instead, temperatures remained below or
around the freezing point and we have several days of snowfall, so that by now
we have c 2 feet of snow on the ground, and many mornings, when I walk to work,
the birch forest looks like a wonderland, with snow on all the branches and
millions of diamonds glittering underfoot. Now and then, such as this morning,
the fresh layer of snow may constitute a bit of a problem; the first part of my
walk is via a side-path of 'Kjærlighetsstien' (=Lovers Walk), the main path
that bisects Folkeparken from Tromsø Museum to the shore at Sorgenfri
(='Without a care', no doubt originally, when the town was much smaller, the
name of a summerhouse outside town). This morning I was the first one to walk
this path, and it is narrow, and the snow besides it is quite soft, so that one
must 'grinne' (here in Tromsø dialect we have a special word for walking
through deep snow, not used elsewhere in Norway), and this is not all that much
used. Fortunately when I walk to work at c 8 30 (I now only have a 20%
professor II job, so don't have to arrive at 8am sharp anymore) there is some
daylight still, differently from the afternoon (the sun sets these days at
around 2 pm, and every day that happens 10 minutes earlier, until we have
mørketiden, the dark period, with no sun above the horizon, from 20. november
until 21.january).
The walk through the birch forest and spruce plantations is almost silent. Most
of the small bird have probably trekked to the feeders around the houses; some
days I hear a Willow Tit or even a Bullfinch, but usually the only birds sounds
are the Magpies and the Hooded Crows, both very common birds in Tromsø, and
often the croak of passing Ravens, a bird that invades the town in winter. Even
on the shore of the sound the crows dominate, but here there are also a few
Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, and on the water large flocks of Common
Eider and some other seaducks, as well as Cormorants, another bird that is much
more common in winter here than in summer.
In my garden I have a large tube-feeder, where I feed sunflower seeds; these
are very popular in these snow-times. Most of the visitors are Paridae, the
yellow and black Kjøttmeis Parus major with its conspicuous neck-tie, and the
smaller, but very feisty Granmeis Parus montanus, all black and white. (I use
the Norwegian names for these birds, as using the normal English vernacular
names regularly gets me into trouble with all sorts of filters, leading to
refused mails and irate accusations of obscenity, mirabile dictu!). In
addition, Greenfinches are common, most of them young of the year with hardly
any green at all, but easily recognizable by the yellow wing stripe. This
winter I have no House Sparrows, but I see they are still present at a house
50m down the road, where they invaded two years ago. Nor have I seen any
Bullfinches at the feeder as yet, unfortunately. Earlier this autumn one of our
local magpies had learned to cling and hang at the feeder, and extract seeds
that way, but since we have so much snow, it seems to be more complicated, and
I have not seen him/her do it for some weeks. both the magpies and the crows
feed under the feeder, taking spilled seeds from the snow. Feral pigeons come
and prospect now and then, but they seem completely unable to get some food
from the feeder at all.
As you see, one does not need to come to Tromsø in winter for the birds! We
have some spectacular ones, of course, the likes of King Eiders, Yellow-billed
Loons and the occasional Gyrfalcon, but they are far from thick on the ground,
and most of the time there is no daylight either. How nice then to follow the
vicissitudes of other birders via the birdlists and get at least vicarious
thrills.
Wim Vader,
Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø,
Norway
PS My old email address, does no longer work. So please switch
to the new one.
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