I’ve been attending a great gathering of gardeners from all over Norway the last couple of days, organised by my colleagues at the Ringve Botanical Gardens.
These relatively mild days has brought with it the full first wave of spring migrants to this part of Norway and while we were on a tour of the gardens today, the place was full of newly arrived active migrants, excited by the time of year….fieldfares (gråtrost) were chasing each other through the tree tops, redwings and a song thrush (rødvingetrost and måltrost) were singing as were wood pigeons (ringdue) and chiffchaffs (gransanger) whilst white wagtails (linerle) were feeding in the grass and geese were passing over. It started to rain heavily as soon as we finished…perfect timing…and returning home the muddy water from the small river that enters the bay below the house was evident…and a robin (rødstrupe) was singing his bittersweet song! Life is good!