FW: Early spring in Odijk, Netherlands

My LAT partner Riet lives in Odijk, a green village close to Utrecht, almost in the centre of the Neterlands. She has lived here already for many years, in a house in a row, with a very small garden in front (with a large birch), and a somewhat larger garden in the back, always full of flowers. 

It is early spring here now and we have just had an almost unprecedented row of sunny days (often still with a little night frost). The winter has also been very mild. The snowdrops and Eranthus have already gone, but the gardens and road verges are full of crocuses, daffodils, Scylla and other ‘early bulbs’, while the buttercup relative Ficaria verna dominates roadsides and also woodlands.  Odijk has also a lot of blue Vinca, both in the gardens and the remnant woodland.

Also for the birds it is early spring. Just now a pair of European Robins is tirelessly busy collecting nest material just outside the living room windows; they nest in the large holly bush, that gives very good protection to the birds. The local pair of European Blackbirds (virtually every green garden has a pair) also usually nest there, and probably also the Dunnocks that are always present. There are also many Wrens in the gardens here, but I do not think they nest in Riet’s garden this year. The dominant birds in the garden otherwise are the tits: Great Tit and Blue Tit, and Riet feeds them, as very many people do here. This year there are not any House Sparrows in this garden: they are common in the village, but patchily, probably where the roof constructions allow nesting. In front of the house a Chaffinch sings all day long. These are very common in the village gardens, but much less so in the bits of woodland; there the Chiffchaffs have just returned, and this morning I heard the ‘shouts’ of the Song Thrush, the talking thrush of Norwegian dialects.

Much more obvious residents of Riet’s garden are a pair of fat Wood Pigeons. These birds are almost too common here, and many stay overnight on the birch in the front garden, making parking in front of the house a risky business, though often hard to avoid. There are also many Collared Doves in the village, and they too venture regularly into the back garden.

Odijk is a village of Jackdaws: these cozy birds are everywhere and in the late afternoon hundreds may be in the air, milling around–always in pairs– before roosting communally. I rarely see them in the garden, though they may well come in when nobody is looking–these are very smart birds. The Magpies are less reluctant.

Just today I heard again a small flock (5) of Oystercatchers circling loudly ‘te-peeting’ over the village. Also here they have started nesting on flat roofs.

Just a snapshot from a world completely different from ‘my’ Tromsø in northern Norway, where spring still is months away.

Wim Vader, Tromsø, Norway (but just now Odijk, the Netherlands)