Goldfinches are experts at neither getting burrs attached to them nor a face full of snow when feeding as here on burdock (borre) in the garden (filmed from the living room). The burdock were deliberately grown here so that I could see these mainly winter visitors feeding from the comfort of the living room!
Thousands of thrushes, mainly redwings and fieldfares (rødvingetrost og gråtrost) arrived back in this part of Norway over the last couple of weeks and local breeders are already established in their territories. Both species breed right up to the tree line where there’s still a lot of snow and will forage for food on agricultural land until the snow disappears, mainly on higher ground. However, there’s been significant snow falls higher up and the snow line has moved back into the lowlands as is common at this time of year. Many of the new arrivals are then pressed down and concentrated on a narrow strip of lower ground near the fjord where there is only a sprinkling of snow which will disappear again during the day. This happened today and a large flock of very talkative birds arrived in the garden and some, mainly, redwings can be heard singing at the start and then many of the fieldfares take to flight in the second segment…
Not in the way Rachel Carson was thinking back in the 60s although that crisis (the biggest one) is also lurking under the surface too….but the current crisis has silenced much human generated noise and it’s like early Sunday morning every day now except there are even less flights taking off from the airport. I love it!! But spring approaches just like every year and this morning starlings (stær) were back in the garden, one of the golden moments of spring to hear the characteristic song of this bird again! Here’s an archive picture of the year’s first starling sitting singing on a roof in Storlidalen, on the edge of the Sylane mountains, in April one year in the 1980s.
I was woken this morning to the sound of swallows (låvesvale) outside and a flock of some 15-20 birds were feeding low over the tree tops encouraged northwards last week by the warm weather over the whole of southern Norway and a week of temperatures close to 20C and a maximum of 22C in Trondheim. The temperature has now plummeted 15-20C and it’s rained! The hazy dusty warm weather due to farmers ploughing the dry land (a month of drought) in combination with the arrival of Saharan dust and pollen laden air is replaced with a heavy snow warning, although it’s unlikely to be a frost here on the coast. So, those swallows are in for a shock!!
A Helleborus niger, Christmas Rose actually almost flowered at christmas. The flower bud seems to be unscathed by the bitterly cold weather after Xmas and it looks perfectly happy despite the roots being
