Making the most of some sun

Thursday was forecast to be a sunny day further inland including in the mountains at Sulitjelma. I had to make the most of the day as the ongoing forecast is a bit uncertain and I may not get another chance for some good buttering.

I chose Sulis instead of Graddis in Junkerdalen because Sulis is 40 minutes less driving and has had far less historical coverage so the chance of finding something new is much higher (I dream of discovering new sites for Dusky-winged Fritillary (dvergperlemorvinge) and Arctic Grayling (tundraringvinge)). I awoke at 0430 with the disappointment of the previous night’s footy game fresh in my mind but felt energetic and excited with what the morning would bring.

On the way I stopped at Klungset to do some birding. As I noted last year something serious has happened here and numbers of Velvet Scoter are a fraction of what they used to be and I counted fewer than 100 in the whole area. A very distant male Surf Scoter was almost certainly the same as seen a month ago but I was unable to pick out the American White-winged Scoter also seen a month ago. Other good birds were King Eider, Great Northern Diver and Red-necked Grebe. Here are the two eBird checklists I made:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S372593345

https://ebird.org/checklist/S372599446

Up on the mountains the forecast cloudless skies were not evident and I had to wait patiently for the sun to come. I spent some time looking at the many alpine/arctic flowers that the area is famous for but my knowledge of plants is poor so I am reliant on taking photos and using AI to help me although I see there are often very similar species and often feel I can’t trust the answer I get well enough to register my sightings.

I am on firmer ground when it comes to butterfly ID and when the sun did shine then the butterflies flew. I had a period of around an hour when there were many individuals which would stop on flowers but as the morning drew on there were fewer to see and then they would often just zoom by.

Two of the special species of the area are Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow and Northern Clouded Yellow and I had many sightings with Northern being far commoner. I have always found these a challenge to photograph but this time did fairly well although the first mentioned remains difficult. I also got film of both species which allowed me to capture the upperwings which you otherwise never see. A couple of Moorland Clouded Yellows were also present (as I had noted last year) and the presence of all three species at the same site must be unique.

Norse Grayling, which was my first record here, and Alpine Grizzled Skipper were also special species. Fritillaries were very scarce and I had just three individuals of three species (Pearl-bordered, Small Pearl-bordered and Mountain) but nothing rarer.

The pictures are in no particular order

Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge) with a Scotch Burnett (fjelblodråpesvermer)

A video grab showing the uppering of a male Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge)

And Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow (polargulvinge)

Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge)

An as usual out of focus picture of Pale Arctic CY

I did get to see it nectaring well if briefly

Norse Grayling (nornens ringvinge)

Alpine Grizzled Skipper (polarsmyger)

A fuzzy but rare shot of the upperwing of Norse Grayling

Another Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow. They are particularly green when seen like this

Northern CY

This moth would appear to be a rare Enthepria polata (polarbergmåler)

Looking west at 0840 when the sun came through

amongst the flower were these scarce Arnica angustifiola alpina  (fjellsolblom)

And these already flowered Diapensia lapponica (fjellpryd)

Røvika at 0615

Selfie with a Northern Clouded Yellow. This was the first butterfly I saw which started to fly just before a big cloud covered the sun causing it to land again allowing close study

Looking south towards Junkerdalen at 1250 when I left

It was a joy to find two families of Curlews (storspove) close to the cabin with males keeping their eyes on broods of 2 and 3 nearly fully grown young.