Spring starts late in Arctic Norway, but when it comes there is one long blast of daylight so energising it draws birds all the way from Africa
One day I’ll see my last redstart – perhaps I already have. Was it the one that I followed across the hill behind Gabi Wagner’s house near Tromsø in northern Norway at midnight on a midsummer’s day?
I had gone out for a walk. Another walk – because it is light all the time at that time in Troms County and there seems no reason not to be up and out in it as long as it lasts. And it lasts long. It lasts so long that lasting is not what it does. The light, plainly, is. Elsewhere, and at other times, days might be where we live, but for three months of the Arctic year there are no days, or rather there is just one long day, and everything lives in its light. Continue reading...
