OSLO BIRDER: 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😉