Guess who’s back? - and not a butterfly in sight! 😊
Autumn is really upon us and the cereal fields in Maridalen
are being harvested as we speak. This always causes the first flocks of Meadow
Pipits to appear and there is also a big flock of Greylag Geese so it is nice
and birdy. A fine 1st year male Bluethroat was today’s bird of the
day but not quite as good as a Kingfisher on Wednesday and there are also good
numbers of Whinchats, Nutcrackers flying back and forth from the city where
they are collecting Hazel nuts and raptors to see including Honey Buzzards and
Hobbies.
Yesterday I needed to go to the airport to pick someone up
so made a day of it with a stop at Svellet and then a look for the Taiga Bean
Geese which have already been seen. I failed to find the geese and with no GPS
tags still functioning it has become a bit more hit and miss especially in the autumn
when they do not use the river. I did find feathers and droppings at a favoured
loafing site so can personally confirm their return
Svellet gave me my first Little Stint and Curlew Sandpiper
of the year but I am till missing three common waders for my year list – Grey Plover,
Sanderling and Great Snipe – and fear there is a real risk they remain as
absentees.
Maridalen has had a good autumn for waders and that is despite there being nearly no mud showing due to high water levels. Today 2 Ruff were on an island and over the last couple of weeks I have had flyover Curlew, Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Redshank and Greenshank aswell as Common Sandpipers along the rocky shore. The Lapwings look to have moved on sometime in July though and I saw no evidence that the two late broods produced any fledged young.
If my photos are looking even worse than usual then it is because
the bazooka has now gone into complete lock down and I cannot get any life out
of it so all pictures are with the superzoom which itself is suffering with
age.
Bluethroat (blåstrupe) in Maridalen. The colourful throat shows it to be a male
and the wing bar shows it to be a bird of the year
Whinchat (buskskvett) and Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke) very typical birds for the end of August
although this Whitethroat (tornsanger) is getting a bit late
spot the Kingfisher (isfugl)?
a bit easier here
some of the Greylag Geese (grågås) and a Whooper Swan (sangsvane)
12 Curlew (storspove) migrating over Maridalsvannet earlier in the month
and two Greenshank (gluttsnipe) that flew around looking for somewhere to land
A video of a Mink eating a Crayfish and you can see the remains of many others. Otters have recently been seen in Maridalen and if they establish themselves then they will hopefully result in a reduction in Mink numbers
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:
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.
Whilst I was away at the weekend the ice melted on
Maridalsvannet. This is early but despite it having been so dry the water
levels are currently high so the lake doesn’t yet look that appealing. That
being said though there have already been some good birds and maybe when the
ice doesn’t melt until the end of the month as is often the case that means
that a lot of birds are missed out on as they cannot splash down even if they
wanted. Both species of diver are already back and their display calls ring
around the valley. More impressively though has been the three , yes 3, species
of grebes that have graced the lake. Following last years first ever record of
Little Grebe in the Dale a bird in exactly the same place it was probably the same
bird. Great Crested Grebe is more expected but a Slavonian Grebe hanging out
with Teal is record early as this species normally passes through, and not
annually, at the end of the month.
Raptors are still very thin on the ground but the first Osprey
of the year turned up on Tuesday and a Peregrine was hunting in the valley
today. Today also finally saw the first day with really good numbers of
passerines on the (very dry) fields: Bramblings, Redwings and Meadow Pipits
were the most numerous.
A real treat today was being able to listen to the calls of
migrating Curlews and a flock of 6 really wanted to land but in the end gave up
and flew north.
an ice free Maridalsvannet looking towards the south
my first Osprey (fiskeørn) of the year - a particularly well marked female
migrating Curlews (storspove)
Little Grebe (dvergdykker)
Slavonian Grebe (horndykker)
and the best picture of all, a Great Crested Grebe (toppdykker)...
there have been up to 10 Lapwing (vipe) on their favoured two fields and there are already two nests. Nest 1
Nest 2
Green Sandpiper (skogsnipe)
a Kestrel (tårnfalk) today and a Brambling (bjørkefink)
a young Peregrine (vandrefalk) that I saw three times today
Yesterday I thought I would see if Sørkedalen had anything more to offer and caught up with the plastic hybrid goose that has been around for a couple of weeks and a real piece of plastic had me for quite a few seconds thinking I had seen my first Ring Ouzel of the year…
what looks to be a hybrid Emporer x Barnacle Goose together with Pink-feet
