A large flock of bramblings (bjørkefink) in the garden this afternoon, at least 120! This is double the highest winter flock ever recorded in Malvik, but small compared to a flock of 350 seen in February in the north of the county! Large numbers of brambling have overwintered in Norway this winter!
Monthly Archives: March 2018
First day of spring sign!
The first day of spring, snow showers and, right on the dot, I heard my first yellowhammer singing this morning whilst I was in the outhouse….managed to capture one short “Little bit of bread” phrase.
“1896, Edward Marston, By meadow and stream: pleasant memories of pleasant places
It is delightful to hear the yellowhammer’s song — his only song : “A little bit of bread and no cheese.”
1937, Lovely places I remember (in The Rotarian, volume 50, number 2, February 1937)
“A little bit of bread and no cheese!” cry the yellowhammers petulantly. But no one takes any notice of them.”
In Norwegian they sing:
En-to-tre-fire-fem-seks-syv) with weight on syv.
(meaning 1-2-3-4-5-6-7…..
Hector and the Disobedient Gardener!
Héctor is from Spain.and is teaching art and photography at the folkhøgskole (folk high school) in Skogn. He is working on a photo-project about vegetable gardens featuring “disobedient farmers/gardeners”. I’ve never been called disobedient, but I think I like that title (D.G.!!).
This was his second visit and he came with his new large format camera today (the lenses and plates can only be obtained second hand, but the frame is new and the film can be bought and developed at one place…). Will be fun to see the result! He’s been both photographing in the garden and in the cellar!
He photographed and tasted both Allium cernuum (Nodding or Chicago onion) as well as Hablitzia. He also took pictures of the dead parts of Udo, Aralia cordata.
Jackdaws coming in for landing
Jackdaws (kaie) coming in for landing below the house in the bay! It’s a hard winter for them with continuous snow cover!
The first sign of spring
Extreme Salad Man Videos
A: Around the World in 80 plants talk in Hurdal, Norway in 3 parts with index to all the plants and topics covered in the film description:
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiMSyt7qqGE
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIlkhwQ-t48
Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBxBwHzygpw
B: Stephen’s salad: a six part series following me around the garden collecting plants for a springtime extreme salad in mid-May, also fully indexed by plant names in the film description:
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvSB5cb_FXI
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUiS0cOhASA
Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKmEJhSgp7g
Part 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5mXiVd5u4A
Part 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqYDlKqHEbs
Part 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BZGXsUR6hA
C: Webinar on Winter and Hungry Gap Vegetables, March 2018: https://youtu.be/sf1ucsGrU2U
D: Interiew at the Holma Forest Garden in Sweden
https://vimeo.com/172589400
E: Perennial vegetables webinar organised by Swedish Eskilstunas folkhögskola (folk school), Omställningsnätverket (Swedish transition network) and with support of Hela Sverige ska Leva.
https://youtu.be/DO_BdCXqaE0
Webinar on winter perennial vegetables!
Thank you Emilia Rekestad for putting last week’s webinar on winter perennial vegetables up more permanently on youtube. Emilia first introduces the webinar and the polyculture project through which it was organised!
I hope you find it useful and please help us by sharing with friends and relevant groups!!
Drumming woodpecker
A bit milder today and a drumming great spotted woodpecker (flaggspett) was heard again in the garden this morning!
Snowcreeper?
Full moon fjord ice and the otter
A less obvious result of the full moon is drifting ice on the fjord, resulting from unusually high tide releasing ice from the shoreline and floating out into the fjord, here in a long band!
…and I spotted an otter on one of these pieces of ice back at the end of February 2010
