The 21th of March is the spring equinox, and day and night (almost) have the same length. It’s the first day of astronomical spring; however, it hasn’t felt like that yet.
Sure, we had some days with nice weather. During Easter, for example. Which is especially important in Norway! During Easter, all Norwegians want to go skiing, eating Kvikk-lunsj (the Norwegian Kit-Kat) and sleeping in mountain cabins. Preferably with a lot of sun, a phenomenon the Norwegians call “påskevær”, or “Easter weather”.
When moving to the Norwegians mountains, I was told that another sign of spring is the spring pasque flower (Pulsatilla vernalis). When you find this, you know spring is on its way. This year showed that that is not always the case!
1) The spring pasque flower. 2) Easter weather while skiing! 3) Curlew. 4) Male roe deer.
Both the easter weather and finding the pasque flower seemed promising, but we were only tricked to believing that spring had arrived. Because we still got snow, and some more snow. As late as last Saturday, May 27th, we woke up to a thin layer of fresh snow. Thankfully, it disappeared quickly again!
Despite the weather, it is a beautiful time of year. Nature is becoming “alive” again, with all the migratory birds arriving. And of course all the babies being born! During our last moose safari, we spotted two teeny-tiny roe deer calves, barely able to walk. Probably one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. <3
According to the weather forecast, we’ll have something to look forward to next week, with temperatures up to 20 °C. That would make a great start of the season! In all seriousness, not matter the weather, we are super excited to start the season again in just a couple of days, on June 1. And thankfully, most os the snow is gone, so we don’t need snowshoes for our hikes. Muskox, here we come!