2023-04-24 08:08:00
I was in Sweden for a week, where the last snow melted and the cranes were already walking around en masse, but where the songbirds still sang subdued and northern resident birds showed themselves as gushes and siskins. And although Sweden is the country of the hurdy-gurdy, they had not yet arrived from the south.
After returning home, spring appears to have started in the Netherlands. I am welcomed by blackcaps, barn swallows, common terns and willow warblers. I usually find fitis in April and then I immediately hear their high starting and low descending tune everywhere. Apparently they move in groups. They come from the West African savannas, crossed the Sahara, the Atlas Mountains, the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees, covered six thousand kilometers, reached Groningen early one morning and immediately started singing.
Maybe they’re glad they’re here, but I might imagine they’d have to bunker down a bit first. An animal weighing regarding ten grams, which never sits still for a moment, has to eat regularly. By the way, they do sit still when they sing, maybe that’s soothing. But the males probably immediately trumpet their presence, in case their potential other halves show up.
Preferably an environment without cats
Warblers are small, yellow-green rollers. They like forests, parks and gardens overgrown with trees and shrubs, preferably without cats. Perhaps it is due to the increased deforestation, perhaps to the incomprehensible fashion to tile the garden, but the willow bush has been steadily declining for years.
Yet it is still one of our most common breeding birds. No wonder, because if all general birds decrease in number, such as blackbird, starling, house sparrow, hedge sparrow and greenfinch, the ranking remains regarding the same.
The fitis migration is still in full swing, thousands of fitis continue their flight to Sweden, where their tune is probably also heard by now.
Three times a week, biologist Koos Dijksterhuis writes regarding something that grows or blooms. Read his previous Nature Diaries here.
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#Fitis #brings #spring #Fidelity
