Wet winter at 70*N

WET WINTER AT 70’N Also here in Tromsø, at 70*N in N. Norway, we notice warmer, wetter and wilder weather, even though it is hard to prove, since the variations from year to year always have been considerable. At the end of February there was almost a meter of snow on the ground, quite normal for that time of the year. Usually (I.e. in 13 of 14 winters this Century), there is more snow on the ground at the end of March than at its start, but this year may well become an exception. We have had a succession of winter storms; first most snow disappeared, then we got fresh snow, so that a few days ago we once more had more than one meter on the ground, but the last days have been mild, with wind and rain, and today is a mild, dripping day, at a temperature of +4*C, and streams of meltwater come down our road (Tromsø is quite three-dimenional), and the road itself is at least 3/4 icefree. That does not go for our driveway, and for the smaller roads and paths; those still feel like skate rinks and I walk with ‘brodder’, iron studs, under my shoes. My car is still mostly hidden under the snow, so my range of activity is not all that large now in winter, and in my garden there are few birds: the unavoidable Magpies (lots of those) , Hooded Crows, and now and then a flock of Great Tits, that come to my one remaining feeder-tube (The other has been blown down in an storm and still lies under the snow somewhere). Now and then a single Biue Tit comes with them, and somewhat more regularly a pair of Willow Tits. I have only seen one single House Sparrow here as yet, although an entire flock of them winters within 100m from here; they are extremely Residential. But Greenfinches do visit now and then, then usually in a small Flock. I still am at Tromsø Museum for a few hours every day, working on my beloved amphipods. This is only ten minutes walk away, along a path through ‘Folkeparken’, a remnant birch forest with a lot of planted conifers. Also here all winter magpies and crows have dominated, while also a pair of Raven regularly can be seen and heard, circling overhead, ‘talking together’. But these last weeks the scene is changing a bit: there are large flocks of tits, the Greenfinches have started to rasp their spring song, and I also now hear the somewhat tentative clear whistles of the Bullfinches. This morning, while walking to the shop, I suddenly heard ‘a voice from the past’, the excited scolding of a male European Blackbird; this is a species that reaches its northern boundary around here, but here it is still mostly the shy forest bird that it probably was everywhere in Europe, before it got accustomed to people and became the quintessential garden bird over most of Europe. This is only the third time in 40 years that I have had one around the house here in winter. There are more water birds than land birds here in winter, and i have told about them before, the Eider ducks, Long-tailed ducks, Scoters and Red-breasted Mergansers, the cormorants, gulls, and now and then also alcids. The only regular shorebird in winter is the Purple Sandpiper, but earlier this week the first Oyestercatchers arrived, and soon Starlings, Snow Buntings , Curlews and Chaffinches will follow. And one now again regularly hears the glorious jubilant Long Calls of the Herring Gulls, that seem to become more common on the roofs also in our area; earlier they concentrated on the larger and flatter roofs in town. Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum, 9037 Tromsø, Norway wim.vader@uit.nowim.vader@uit.no>