An Emperor

 Cabin life continues and with temperatures in the high twenties it is hot by Norwegian standards but for most of the rest of Europe at the moment would be considered a nice cool, refeshing place to be.

There has been just a single nocturnal trip but it revealed singing Corncrake, Quail, Nitghtjar and Marsh Warbler as well as Tawny Owl and Woodcock so was a definite success. In the daytime I have only found Red-backed Shrikes at two sites which confirms my previous impression that 2026 is a poor year for the species.

Butterflies have been good with new species appearing on a near daily basis. Pained Ladies are very numerous this year and are in all stages of freshness with some very tatty individuals nearly devoid of colour and others looking very fresh.

My interest in dragonflies has waned a bit but a new species may be just what I need to put a bit more effort in. There is a large fenced off area which was previously woodland where is seems there is some kind of cooperatives growing of fruit and veg. There is a pond here and I decided to have a look at it after bumping into a couple of Broad-bodied Chasers (blåbredlibelle) other random places including a female seemingly laying eggs on the new cut lawn at the cabin. The view of pond was a bit distant due to the (deer) fence but there were a few Four Spotted Chasers (firflekkbredlibelle) but non with a Cambridge blue body however there was a much larger beast with a darker, but not quite Oxford, blue tail and green body that was patrolling back and forth. It was a bit of a challenge finding it in the view finder and then (manually) focusing on it but a couple of pictures were good enough to confirm my suspicion that it was an Emperor Dragonfly (storkeiserlibelle). This species was first recorded in Norway as recently as 2013 and my record looks to be the furthest north of an adult although there is a record in 2024 from a bit further north of 10 larve but rather strangely there are no photos accompanying this record so it is difficult to know what to make of it (not that I would know what to look for with a larve).

The uncropped picture of the Emperor Dragonfly (storkeiserlibelle)

A bit closer

And here the diagnostic green body and blue tail confirm the ID

This reminds me of one of the big problems with the Norwegian reporting system for insects (birds are well taken care of) is the lack of validation. I only have knowledge of butterflies and dragonflies but especially for butterflies see that there are so many mistakes for species that are photographed and god knows for all the records that are entered without photos but there are clearly many mistakes here as well. It is not only the lack of validation that is a problem it is also observers who clearly consider themselves to be so good that they don’t need to upload photos even of their more special finds -  maybe their own self belief means they don’t think they need to «prove» any of their observations?

Summer hols kick off

School, and university, summer holidays have begun and we are once again privileged to be allowed to use the wonderful cabin at Hulvik. A week of sun, the odd butterfly and maybe some Nightjars awaits plus late nights watching football - Norway vs Senegal at 2am tonight anyone?

Yesterday, I guided Ian from Perth (the one in Australia) in the morning and Maridalen provided a number of lifers during a very fun morning. We discovered a new (and second) Wryneck nest as well as watching feeding time at the very late Black Woodpecker nest, Red-backed Shrikes, Hawfinch, Marsh Warbler and lots more.

Here is a video from the Wrynecks which I took early this morning. Make sure to listen until the end to hear the strange noises the young make.

More successful breeding stories are the Ringed Plovers at Fornebu where both young are now so good as fully grown and still being well cared for by both parents who run distraction displays. This video from Saturday was taken with my phone from the car and may, or may not, show the youngsters.

And in Maridalen today I saw 7 basically fledged young Lapwings - they look fully grown and can fly - but still had adults watching over them. They seemed to be broods of 4,2 and 1 which tallies well with earlier observations. The fate of the two late nests and any young that hatched remains unknown with the crop so high that I cannot see any birds that may be there and I am not sure the adults would bother to fly up to chase off a passing crow either. A minimum of 7 fledged young from 5 nests is probably enough to maintain the population as long as they don’t fly to France for the winter and get shot…

5 Lapwing (vipe) an adult and 4 young

Succesfull breeding

Some pleasant surprises in Oslo and Maridalen regarding breeding birds means I am not completely over into the butterfly world just yet.

On the lake there was suddenly a single adult Mute Swan with 5 small young! This is just like last year in that they suddenly appeared but this year I was better prepared and had discovered the nest on 26 May. After that discovery of the nest though I had been unable on subsequent attempts to see any birds on it (although it was very difficult to see) and had only a record of single adult on 1 June and then a pair flying over the lake (not near the nest) on 9 June. I therefore assumed that the nesting attempt had failed and the birds had moved off. To suddenly see an adult with young was therefore a shock and it was equally surprising that I could not find the other adult anywhere on the lake. Has the male died or moved off? And if so how did the female managed to incubate and feed without me ever seeing her? And the pair I saw on x June – were they visitors? Perhaps the other pair that started nesting and then gave up? An answer to the first question is that P578 who I saw on Maridalsvannet on 29 April, and his ring was again read on 24 May, who is the male of the pair that bred last year and I assume the father of this years young was seen on 16 June at Fornebu where he and his mate had spent the winter – so it looks like he has left his mate to fend for herself! Did this happen before the eggs hatched?

Mute Swan (knoppsvane) - presumably female PC79 who bred here last year - with 5 small young but not with her mate (P578) who has flown down to Fornebu!

The Black-throated Diver pair (one of perhaps two on the lake) still have a single youngster and have moved quite a way from the nest with it.

Black-throated Diver (storlom) family

The ever growing cereal crop on the Lapwing field makes seeing the birds very difficult but yesterday I could see 3 (2 + 1) almost fully grown young which is a great relief but the fate of the two last nests remains unknown.

a nearly fully grown Lapwing (vipe) young

And finally, I had Red-backed Shrike in the Dale this year and it seems to be a nesting pair so fingers crossed for their success.

pair of Red-backed Shrikes (tornskate) in Maridalen

and the male on his own

A visit to Østensjøvannet today also revealed lots of young birds. Best of all were the Black-headed Gulls which have had their first successful breeding season (at least as a colony) for a few years with many large young on two islands. Great Crested Grebes, Coot and Mute Swans also had young (the later no larger than the ones I saw on Maridalsvannet) and surprisingly a female Goldeneye had 11 quite large young with her. This raises two questions – are they all hers? Perhaps unlikely. And how have so many survived so long? Normally the vast majority get eaten either by gulls or pike.

Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke) have had a successful breeding season at Østensjøvannet

and a male Gadwall (snadderand) which once again seems to have chosen Østensjøvannet to moult although this year there were no records earlier in the spring

Buttering

Last autumn I wrote a post summarising a great year of buttering and I also listed the remaining Norwegian species I had yet to see and how I could go about that.

 Yesterday was time to start chipping away at that list and a trip to Hedmark was in order to search for Lapland Ringlet (emblas ringvinge) and Bog Fritillary (ringperlemorvinge). I chose yesterday as it was forecast to be warm but cloudy with periods of sun. I thought this would be better than a very sunny day as the butterflies were more likely to rest when the sun went behind a cloud and allow me to get photos rather than them just flying around manically.

I had an early start from Oslo and arrived at my chosen bog by 0930. I then began to doubt my strategy as there was rather a lot of cloud in the sky and no immediate sign that the sun would shine. It was warm though and moths were flying around. I thought that I might scare some butterflies up if I walked around and succeeded in seeing a Northern Grizzled Skipper (moltesmyger) which was only me second sighting ever. A couple of fritillaries also flew past quite slowly but frustratingly did not land within sight of me. I needed sun and eventually I could see that there would soon be a large gap in the clouds - and that did the trick.

Suddenly there were quite a few fritillaries on the wing. The first ones that I managed to identify were Pearl-bordered (rødflekket perlemorvinge) but most just zipped by. I did have my butterfly net with me although I am normally equally as (un)successful with it as I am at scratching on tree trunks and managed to net one. And, it was the first of my targets - a Bog. Things then became easier and I saw a number of them and got photos and it was probably the commonest butterfly there. I also had some more skippers and then a giant of a butterfly - a  Baltic Grayling (juttas ringvinge). Again this was only my second ever sighting and in total had probably 4 individuals which frequently landed on tree trunks.

I was still missing my second target species but after 2 hours I saw another dark butterfly but it was smaller than the graylings and it kindly landed and allowed photos. Embla in the box - the day was working out entirely to plan 🦋🥳.

I had good time to continue further east and check out some flower rich road verges where I have stopped a couple of times before including in July last year for Silvery Argus (kileblåvinge). I was a bit shocked to see that the verges had been scraped to dig drainage ditched but did find some untouched areas and here found a couple of Chequered Skippers (gulflekksmyger) which again and for the third time was only my second ever sighting and they were mint individuals. A few Violet Coppers (fiolett gullvinge) were past their best but were probably the rarest butterfly of the day although it is a species I have been lucky enough to see a few times before.

Yesterday takes me to 84 species of butterfly in Norway and leaves me just 17 to get.

And birds? Well, there were some but nothing to write home, or on this blog, about.

the first target to fall - Bog Fritillary (ringperlemorvinge). The line of white circles at end back of the underwing are diagnostic

from above it looks like a Small Pearl-bordered (brunflekket) but note how the black spots bleed into the triangular markings and this appears to be diagnostic

this one got me very excited and I was thinking a Friggs Fritillary but turned out to be an abberation of Bog. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the upperwing but we can see some of it and it is mostly dark and on the underwing it is much darker than normal

and target #2 - Lapland Ringlet (emblas ringvinge). I only has this one individual with a bit missing from its wing

and my second ever sighting of Northern Grizzled Skipper (moltesmyger) and much better than my first

and my second ever sighting(s) of Baltic Grayling (juttas ringvinge) - a large butterfly that has a 2 year syklus

waiting for the clouds to move

the forest bog when the sun was shining - this type of habitat must be very common but rarely visited by anyone with an interest/knowledge 

of butterflies so many of the species may be far more widespread than the handfull of annual records suggest

and my second ever Chequered Skipper (gulflekksmyger) which was a much more satsifying sighting than my first last year which was so late and faded that it was barely recognisable

and the rare Violet Copper (fiolett gullvinge)

a tiny orchid growing on a roadside verge - Early/Northern Coralroot (korallrot)

An urban Blyth’s Reed

Only ten years ago it looked like Blyth’s Reed Warbler was going to establish itself as a regular, if rare, breeding bird in south east Norway. It bred in Maridalen in 2015 and in my experience a surprisingly high number of the singing males that turned up other places around Oslo ended up finding a mate and breeding.

But then the upward curve peaked and a decline started with the species becoming less regular. It is a classic nocturnal singer species and also a late arriver and is often not found until us birders go on our nocturnal trips when there is nice warm weather in mid June.

This year though the species was looking like it was going to be desperately scarce with only 10 birds in Norway up until June 8th but since then there has been a solid arrival with at least a doubling of birds. One of these was found last night in urban Oslo by who else than Stig Johan (there are not many people who would go birding in the middle of the night where he goes) and was still singing strong when I visited at 11am in a rain shower. They really are one of our best singers and this bird put on quite the show at point blank range. It was along a well vegetated stream under overhead wires by a car park for busses - perfect habitat!

The weather forecast for the coming week is conducive to nocturnal trips so maybe there will be more Blyth’s to find and hopefully a River Warbler or Corncrake.

Blyth's Reed Warbler (busksanger) - I took a bit too long before I tried to take any photos as before this it was singing very openly

Au revoir GG?

On Thursday I guided to Great Grey Owls for what will probably be the last time this season. The chosen bird was Miss Hissig, the unusually vocal female who has always made her presence known by bill snapping whilst we are more than 50m away. On Thursday she had also added a rather menacing growling to her repertoire and this may have been due to the presence of a fairly large young on the nest. We kept a respectable distance and didn’t place ourselves between the female who was perched high in a pine about 25m from the nest and the nest itself. There was also the possibility that there was a young on the ground and should one approach such a bird too close then the chances are very high that the female will attack (it is this instinct that ringers use to catch the adult females with a large net). We clearly chose an acceptable spot to stand as she soon became quiet although any noise or perhaps movement elsewhere in the forest could attract her attention and start a series of growls and snaps.

We hoped to see the male arriving with food but early afternoon was never going to be the best time although at one stage the youngster became very animated and started calling excitedly which I felt certain was going to prelude dad flying in (mum had also looked excited) but nothing happened. The young which had been out of sight when we arrived became more and more active during our stay so was I assume getting hungry. It also rained briefly which I thought would cause mum to fly to the nest to cover the young but that did not happen either. This female really is a strange beast but it hasn’t stopped her, or perhaps more importantly her mate who brings the food, from raising a youngster to very close the jumping out of the nest stage in a year where voles are clearly in short supply.

The excited calling from the nest at one stage sounded like it was coming from two birds so the single large bird we saw may also have a smaller, younger, sibling that was not yet large enough to peer over the edge of the nest platform.

The video included sequences of mum bill snapping and growling (good speakers may be necessary to hear this) and the youngster calling excitedly.

I am very excited to see how this winter and spring of next year will pan out. If vole numbers crash then we could see Great Grey and other owls spreading around looking for food and then we may be lucky enough to have an owl winter around Oslo. Should this happen though then the chances of spring 2027 being good for singing and breeding owls is low. Vole numbers may however hold up for another season meaning next spring is similar to this, i.e owls breeding but at low densities and with few young. Only time will tell.