August update

Our summer holidays usually include a week or two spent at our cabin near Bodø, north of the Arctic Circle but with growing kids it appears that is no longer something the whole family wants to do. I always love out time there so miss this greatly but we did have chance to visit the cabin this year if only for a couple of hours when we went to Bodø for a wedding last weekend. I had a quick check of my favourite bird and butterfly locations and found next to nothing especially on the butterfly front which made it a bit easier to accept not having spent longer there this year.

Around Oslo it has been very variable weather with a few hours of sunshine and then thunderstorms and very heavy rain. This has made searching for bugs difficult and if continues like this then I imagine a lot of species will have a bad season. I have however seen one of my favourite butterflies and probably the last species I will see this year – Brown Hairstreak.

On the bird front raptors are becoming more obvious in Maridalen and I have had quite a few sightings of Honey Buzzards and Ospreys. There have also been concentrations of divers on the lake with up to 7 Red-throated and 11 Black-throated. All are adults and while the Red-throated are fishing and taking the fish back to their breeding pools in the forest where young are waiting the Black-throated have no young and are clearly a concentration of failed/non breeders. There has not been successful breeding on Maridalsvannet this year with water levels have varied too much and I imagine the same has happened on many of the larger lakes in the area. Red-throated Divers probably experience less variation in water levels on the small forest pools they choose.

Brown Hairstreak (slåpetornstjertvinge)

and another individual. Both these are males

these 3 Ospreys (fiskeørn) were flying together and making a lot of noise in Maridalen. I thought at first they must be a family despite it being an early date for fledged young but as the next photo shows they are all adults

the 3 different birds. All are adults and I think all are males (but am unsure). Perhaps they are young birds that have not yet established a territory or mate or perhaps failed breeders.

all my views of Honey Buzzards were at long range but Maridalen's breeding pair of Buzzards (musvåk) showed well one day although it is a while since I have seen them. I do not know if they have raised any young this year but they were making a lot of noise flying over their nesting area and one was even carrying nesting material. I have no idea what this means.

11 Black-throated Divers (storlom)

the last Lapwings (vipe) an adult Female and a juvenile were in Maridalen until 2 August but seem to have migrated now

an attempt at photography - a daisybird

there are still a few juvenile Red-backed Shrikes (tornskate) but the family groups have broken up and the adult males moved off

dragonflies are tricky. I revisited the sight where I found the Bog Hawker (torvmoselibelle) and saw what I thought were three male but going through my pictures found that a Moorland Hawker (starrlibelle) had also sneaked in amongst them. Bog above and Moorland below

and here a much better picture of a Bog Hawker

the largest pool in the dragonfly bog

a picture from where our cabin is showing the distant Blåmannsisen glacier close to the Swedish border. The ice free areas seem to grow every year (without me having done any proper analysis)

Summer holidays - heading south

Our summer holidays are far from over but part 2 at the cabin in Bodø is over and I am writing this whilst we are driving back south.

The time at the cabin ended with a new, and my 66th Norwegian species of, butterfly when I again visited the alpine habitats around Sulitjelma and found a species I have long wanted to see - Northern Couded Yellow, which is orange on the upperside and impossible to miss as it flutters over the tundra. It was also much more approachable than the Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow which I again found and despite it  quickly disappearing over the mountainside I manged OK pictures of it on the ground hiding in grass.

A quick stop on Saltfjellet as we crossed the Arctic Circle revealed the strange sight of 14 noisy Long-tailed Skuas and 2 Arctic Terns flying around high up seemingly catching flying insects.

Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge)

The undersidenwoth the sun shing through and showing the orsnge colours

The underside

A much better picture of a Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow (polargulvinge)

Golden Plover (heilo)

With the Blåmannsisen glacier in the background

Wigeon (brunnakke) duckling

Wigeon mum

Whooper Swan (samgsvane) family

6 Long-tailed Skuas (fjelljo)

Long-tailed Skua and Arctic Tern (rødnebbterne)

Female Bluethroat (blåstrupe) who clearly had young nearby

False musk orchid (fjellkurle)

habitat of Northern Clouded Yellow

Vanilla scented bog orchid (Fjellhvitkurle)

This balloon was floating over the cabin at 130,000 ft (39.6km) and is the size of a football stadium with an instrument to measure cosmic rays hanging under it. It was launched from Sweden by NASA. more info here  https://sites.wustl.edu/xlcal/home/

Two, yes 2, new butterflies

 I wrote in my last post that to see new butterflies in Norway I would have to make specific trips well that proved, and very quickly, to be wrong😊. Yesterday Mrs OB, the Beast and I (no chance of getting Jr and Jr Jr to accompany us) climbed a mountain. The missus chose where we went and it was in the mountains close to the Swedish border 61km east of the cabin where we would get to see the Blåmannsis glacier close up (we see it on the horizon from the cabin). I had hopes that we would see butterflies especially as it was sunny after a week of rain but I had no specific info on the area and anything I were to find would definitely go into the «stumbled upon» box.

I got a really good feeling when we got out of the car. We were at 650m alltitude (the tree line was about 500m and we were heading for a peak that was 1010m. We would be walking up a southern facing slope and there were flowers everywhere! Just by the car I found a new species of orchid in the form of 5 Coralroot (korslrot), a rather anonymous and small orchid, but an orchid none-the-less.

Butterflies however were not abundant. Dewy Ringlets (fjellringvinge) were the only butterfly I saw initially but then I saw some white butterflies and now it got interesting. Up here there is the chance of northern clouded yellow (mjeltgulvinge) and pale arctic clouded yellow (polargulvinge) but all the butterflies that stopped and allowed study were green-veined whites (rapssommerfugl) which as far as I am concerned shouldn’t be in such alpine habitat. 

As we climbed higher we kept coming across more and more flowers and there were bumblebees and the odd moth but no new butterflies.  Birds were also in very short supply but a Ptarmigan and a Snow Bunting felt like perfect species to encounter. After reaching the top we took a slightly different path back and passed a fantastic flower covered hillside at 900m. A butterfly flew up from the side of the track and thankfully landed close by. An alpine grizzled skipper (polarsmyger)!! Finally one of the special species I had been hoping for. I scanned and scanned the mountainside but only noticed a couple of Dewy Ringlets. I then rejoined my patient family and one last scan revealed a fast flying white butterfly which surely couldn’t be another g-v white. I literally ran after it and saw it landed at about 50m range. I fired off some shots including when it quickly flew off. Crap pictures but enough to show that as I had hoped it was a pale arctic clouded yellow!!! It couldn’t really get much better - 2 rarely recorded species stumbled upon. Next year I will try to give this area a proper grilling but on past form that will mean seeing nothing new😉

Alpine grizzled skipper (polarsmyger)

Pale arctic clouded yellow (polarsmyger)

It did land at 50m range but the pictures were useless

The flower covered mountainside at 900m

The blåmannsis glacier

Close up of the glacier - the white is ice not cloud

The glacier at 60km range

Ptarmigan (fjellrype)

Coral root (koralrot)

Dewy ringlet (fjellringvinge) - the commonest butterfly