I am posting this from the airport in Tromsø having just spent a long weekend with Jr. Even though the sun does not officially disappear under the horizon until 27 November the days are already considerably shorter than in Oslo and as it was also very damp and overcast most of the time it never really got very light. It was not particularly cold though and the only snow was on the tops of the highest mountains that can be seen from the city.
On Saturday night though there was a short period where there were cloudless patches and we saw the northern lights for about 10 minutes.
All the trees had lost their leaves and walking around the city and in the woodlands was a particularly birdless affair. I recorded only 23 species but 4 of were additions to my admittedly rather meagre Troms county list and were all good local birds. The first was a Collared Dove which I twitched in a garden where it has been regularly reported since the end of September. I then heard a Common Crossbill whilst waiting for the bus outside Juniors and most surprisingly had a flock of 16 Long-tailed Tits flying over the cathedral in the city centre. I heard them first and couldn’t work out where the sound was coming from, at first I thought it was being played through a loud speaker by a shop, but then looked up and they were flying over! It was quite a surreal sighting given how few birds I was seeing otherwise. Last new species was a Nutcracker on a walk today which I had hoped to see as this years invasion into NW Europe has produced quite a few sightings up here.
On the sea there were farfewer ducks than we saw on our visit in February but a flock of 200 Common Eider in the harbour did contain a single Queen Eider.
Prestvannet was not frozen but held far fewer ducks than in the summer (just Mallard and Teal) but a huge number of Herons with a count of 92 being, I am sure, the highest number I have ever seen in one place. A Little Egret had been seen with them last week but was unfortunately not to be seen this weekend.
I didn’t get photos of any of the new species but the Queen Eider (praktærfugl) is visible in this video and the photos
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| Spot the Queen Eider? |
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| Here she is |
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| Northern lights from downtown Tromsø |
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| And with the Ishavskatedralen church |
