few Christmas birds

Tromsø is, as you by now must be aware of, at 70*N in northern Norway and this means that around Christmas we have no sun at all (away for two months) and only minimally with daylight. This year the situation was aggravated by a series of severe winter storms, that mostly hit W. Norway, but that also here resulted in strong winds , lots of precipitation, sadly mostly as rain or sleet, and very slippery roads. So my birding was largely confined to peering through my window into the gloom, at my sunflowerseed feeding tubes; but also those have not been very much visited these last weeks. Nevertheless, in the morning, almost before there is any twilight at all, a few tits come to visit (Great and Willow Tits) and now and then the local band of mostly young Greenfinches descends on the tubes and feeds greedily. Hooded Crows and Black-billed Magpies are as always around, the crows having lots of fun in the strong winds, but the magpies mainly bothered by it, seemingly. Along the sound Herring Gulls soar, and that’s all I have seen lately.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas (what’s left of it) and a happy and bird-filled 2012.

Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum

9037 Tromsø, Norway

wim.vader@uit.no ===============================

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