1 or 2 fieldfares (gråtrost) normally overwinter in the garden and this winter has been no exception. They appear in autumn attracted to the cultivated and wild fruit. Fallen apples then become most important as the winter progresses. When the first deep snow arrives, I help them by putting out a few apples that makes it easier for them. The birds are very territorial, defending their cache of apples quite aggressively against other fieldfares. I put out apples in two parts of the garden which has lead to two birds overwintering. They are quite shy and have good vision, so only slight movement in windows puts them up. I’ve gradually moved the apples closer to the house and yesterday I put some apples on my balcony only a couple of metres from where I work….to my surprise, it wasn’t long before a bird found them and I made this video today!
Thanks to KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) colleague Andrew McMillion for coming up to Trondheim to give his seed saving course for local KVANN and Væres Venner Community Garden members!
…and there was time for a Malvik visit, a seed saving and breeding chat, a tour of my seed boxes and a little salad with Witloof chicory and dandelion pizza. Salad ingredients: Celery, three chicory varieties, dandelion (including one flower), carrot, Japanese yams, Allium cernuum and Hablitzia (from the garden), Hristo’s onion (Allium flavescens x nutans?), oca (2 varieties), apple (Aroma), horseradish shoots, garlic, chives, wild buckwheat shoots and turnip “Målselvnepe”
Having survived the wapato harvest last week (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=31597), our helper Daniil Titov was put to another challenging, harvesting the last apples….there are always many apples that we cannot reach with the apple picker, so tree shaking has to be resorted to as it’s too dangerous to use ladders on the steep slope. These will be dried in the near future. We already have enough for eating fresh until April in this year’s bumper harvest of Aroma apples. There are still quite a few at the top of the tree which couldn’t be shaken down, left for the birds.
Finally, having heard the bird for several months, a rose-ringed parakeet / halsbåndparakitt (blue mutation) finally turned up in the garden today and sat eating apples in good view of the living room for some time! It’s known to be an escaped cage bird and several attempts have beem made to capture it.
Feeding birds in winter isn’t necessarily a good thing and at least one study has shown that birds lay lower numbers of eggs when fed well, perhaps due to an unnatural unbalanced oil-rich diet: https://blog.nature.org/science/2015/01/05/winter-bird-feeding-good-or-bad-for-birds However, there are many studies showing the opposite. But is good winter survival and artificially high populations necessarily a good thing apart from entertaining us and increasing awareness of the natural world. Then there’s the spread of disease at bird feeders as with the greenfinch (grønnfink) in the UK (populations plummeted and bird feeders no doubt contributed to the spread). That birds are discouraged from migrating and stay in the same area year round can also lead to greater exposure to disease. But what about the production of bird food? That happens often in large fields, mostly using conventional BigAg non-organic systems which directly impacts local bird populations by pesticides and habitat loss. Here in Norway, little of the bird feed is grown in-country. For these reasons, I try as far as possible to provide natural food for the birds so that they can find alternatives and I can delay putting out food as long as possible. Home grown apples are put out for the thrushes, I tidy seed heads in spring and nettle seeds loved by finches are allowed to hang all winter. Local grain can also be put out for yellowhammers (gulspurv). In the case of goldfinches (stillits), their main food is burdock (borre) and I have introduced Arctium lappa (greater burdock / storborre) to my garden for them and greenfinches (grønnfink). However, at this time of year they tend to move over to the birdfeeder. Here’s a couple of videos from the weekend of these beautiful birds that once were rare in this part of Norway, but are becoming more common each year. See other goldfinch posts here: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?s=goldfinch
Most of the thrushes were gone today, replaced by a flock of about 120 waxwings (sidensvans), picking up from where the thrushes left off!
The first two videos show waxwings eating apples opened up by fieldfares and blackbirds yesterday and also eating guelder rose (krossved) berries, so far not touching the elderberries (svarthyll).
Earlier in the day, the waxwings were hunting insects on birch trees and occasionally high into the air in pursuit of insects:
…and the morning after, they had discovered the yew berries!
…and on unharvested redcurrants (rips)….with a fieldfare (gråtrost) and brambling (bjørkefink) at the end of the video!
It doesn’t happen very often but the last few days at least 3 waxwings (sidensvans) flew into a window on the house, two of which recovered (have put something in the window to discourage them). Probably discoordinated after partying too hard on fermenting apples :(
I can only remember once finding a dead waxwing next to the house (and on occason there can be up to 1,000 of them in the garden).
An album of pictures from my short Perennialen II visit with Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Hege Iren Svendsen at and around Alvastien Telste in Hardanger. Impressive nature, good beer and fruit, good company and just relaxing this time! It poured with rain on the morning that we’d planned to look properly around the Forest Garden, so that will have to wait for next year! Watch this space for the announcement of the next Perennialen event at this wonderful place, now a Permaculture LAND centre, next summer!! Hope to see you there!
Returning to nature
This climber had broken into the house, but it looks like someone has pruned the outside growth away from the window!
Hops
Steinstø “Fruit and cake shop” :) had a good selection of varieties of locally grown fruit!
Ramsons puree!
The road to Hege and Eirik’s LAND centre
The road to Hege and Eirik’s LAND centre
Eirik in the local beer drinking costume ;)
Bedroom view :)
Record rainfall recently and the waterfalls are full…there’s a minihydro scheme up there!
Old walls/terassing are protected
Stunning engineering, pylons way up on the mountainside…
Aralia elata (Devil’s walking stick / fandens spaserstokk) flowering in a local garden, one of the 80 in my book!
Aralia elata (Devil’s walking stick / fandens spaserstokk) flowering in a local garden, one of the 80 in my book!
Alvastien Telste
The forest garden…sadly, it was pouring with rain the next morning, so I didn’t get a proper chance to look around the garden!
The forest garden…sadly, it was pouring with rain the next morning, so I didn’t get a proper chance to look around the garden!
Juniper growing out of a rock!
Alvastien Telste from the other side of the fjord. Eirik and Hege own a wide strip of land up to and to the right of the waterfall near the top…must do the walk up to the mountain cabin next time!
Alvastien Telste
House on the rock!!
On the way to my next stop at Stussvik, where I’d been invited to spend the night with local organic guru Vidar-Rune Synnevåg and his wife, we stopped at Skarsvatnet Goldfish Lake!
Skarsvatnet is home to a number of introduced species including Golden Orfe, Crucian Carp, Eel and Three-spined stickleback…
Mallard with carp
Flowering Japanese knotweed, one of the 80 in my book!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
Salad ingredients: Celery, three chicory varieties, dandelion (including one flower), carrot, Japanese yams, Allium cernuum and Hablitzia (from the garden), Hristo’s onion (Allium flavescens x nutans?), oca (2 varieties), apple (Aroma), horseradish shoots, garlic, chives, wild buckwheat shoots and turnip “Målselvnepe”
