Jr and I have fled the heatwave Oslo is experiencing and have left temperatures in the mid thirties and replaced them with the low tens. This has resulted in two days and 1300km of driving to our cabin near Bodø. The weather should improve whilst we are here but I am writing this sitting next to a radiator on full…
As usual I kept a count of raptors on the drive up and it was a meagre total with just 3 Kestrels, 2 Peregrines, 1 Merlin, 1 Rough-legged Buzzard and 2 White-tailed Eagles meaning about 1 raptor per 150km….
Three well planned Beast walking stops did result in some action for me. A stop in 30C heat gave me an Apollo butterfly which even briefly landed on my head although the battery on my camera proved to be flat so I had to resort to photos with my phone. In this photo you can see me taking a photo of the Apollo.
Jr is the shade whilst I am enjoying this Apollo:
Just before we got to the Arctic Circle a stop in Mo i Rana gave me to two additions to my Nordland county list - Jackdaw (kaie) and Nutcracker (nøttekråke). I have tried for them here before with no joy but finally succeeded. Both seem to have an isolated northerly breeding outpost here and the Nutcrackers are of the siberian subspecies so are different to the birds around Oslo.
Adult and juvenile Nutcracker (nøttekråke) of the race macrorhynchos
Here the parent has extracted a seed from a cone to give to junior
A stop at Saltfjellet on the Arctic Circle was very successful with Long-tailed Skua and Red-necked Phalarope. The skua was actively hunting at very close range but I am unsure as to what it was searching for as a lack of any raptors suggests no rodents.
Long-tailed Skua (fjelljo)
Red-necked Phalarope (svømmesnipe) male who by his behaviour must have had young nearby
What was only supposed to be a few days in Oslo before we headed north to the cabin in Bodø risks becoming many more days as poor weather up north and a football game on Saturday that deserves to be watched on the big screen at home delay are journey.
This has given me the chance to check up on my scarce (and late) breeders. This year we have not been as successful in finding nests, or even birds, as in previous years but I do have one nest to follow and I will of course publish a full update later in the season. If you want an idea as to what I am watching though then look at this absolutely amazing live feed from my old stomping grounds in Sussex.
Butterflies continue to deliver and I had my second ever Norwegian Purple Emperor (stor purpurkåpe) sat on a gravel track in the exact same place as I have previously seen a Poplar Admiral (ospesommerfugl). The Emperor was first seen in Norway as recently as 2019 after expanding rapidly through southern Sweden so it is no surprise that this was only my second sighting of the species and first in Oslo. The Poplar Admiral is a well established species which some people have no problem seeing but I have only ever had three sightings of ever.
Purple Emperor (stor purpurkåpe)
it has already been attacked by a bird and lost a bit of its right wing
Purple Emporers have become so "common" that you see videos now on social media where people have them on their shoes or clothes. I thought this one would be equally as confiding but it was of another persuasion but in the video at the end you do get to see the purple sheen.
a Silver-washed Fritillary (keiserkåpe) and an Arran Brown (fløyelsringvinge)
A week in Beitostølen and the nearby mountains has been a nice family holiday but very uneventful on both the bird and butterfly front. Chilly weather with only occasional sun which was nearly always accompanied by lots of wind did it for the butterflies and the complete lack of rodents (vole and lemmings) meant no food for raptors and a single Kestrel was the only one I saw!
I made an effort to see butterflies whenever the sun shone but numbers were generally low and a few species that I would normally see such as Mountain Fritillary (fjellperlemorvinge) and Silver-spotted Skipper (kommasmyger) were absent which I believe is just a timing issue and a visit in a couple of weeks would hopefully see them flying. I did see a single male Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge) though and as this is my favourite species and one I barely see annually I have to be happy with that.
I did not make an attempt to see lekking Great Snipe and 2026 with a combination of either bad weather or watching the footie on the TV being my excuses.
Male Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge)
Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge)
And my only digital bird memories and these two short videos:
Stage 2 of summer hols 2026 is as usual in Beitostølen. We have escaped the hot weather but maybe a bit too much with rain and cloud threatening to put an end to buttering before it begins.
On the first morning I awoke at 4am and decided to head for Valdresflye. Dotterel, Shore Larks and Long-tailed Ducks were a treat but it is not a lemming year and I did not see a single raptor or Lt Skua although there has been the odd sighting of some wandering skuas in the last few weeks.
Female Dotterel (boltit). A few females were flying around «singing» perhaps in the hope of finding a male that was looking to nest again after a failed first attempt
Valdresflye looking west on 1 July at 05:21. Not much snow this summer
Shore Larks (fjellerke) were the most numerous passerine. This bird was collecting food for young whilst others were singing
Heading further north to one of my favourite buttering sites I was treated to some fantastic views but my hope of enough sun to have some butterfly action were dashed but I did find a few Alpine Argus (fjellblåvinge) sleeping on flowers which was perhaps even nicer than watching them flying around. This is one of my favourite butterflies and does not get the attention I think it deserves.
Views looking east over Øvre Sjodalsvatnet at 06:10
A sleeping Alpine Argus (fjellblåvinge). It was early (06:30), chilly (10C) and cloudy so no wonder it wasn’t flying
Yellow Wagtails (gulerle) seemed to be having a good breeding season with lots of alarm calling adults and birds with beaks full of food
There was some blue sky but any sunshine only lasted a few minutes
The only other butterfly I found sleeping were a few Small Heaths (engringvinge)
Birding surprise of the day was hearing a Quail (vaktel) singing from these fields at 900m alltitude
There are always lots of Sand Martins (sandsvale) at the butterfly site. I have never worked out where they nest but think it may be amongst the rocks that form the foundations for some old farm buildings
Yesterday I wrote that finding a new species of dragonfly might be what I needed to reignite my interest in them - what will finding two do?
This morning I revisited the pond hoping there might be someone working the land who could let me through the fence. No luck on that score but I set about viewing from outside the fence again and quickly noticed there were a few more large dragonflies than yesterday. The Emperor was still present and I was able to get better pictures today although he was still constantly in flight. A couple of Common Hawkers (starrlibelle) were my first of the year and were repeatedly chased off by the Emperor. I also saw something else come into my view finder whilst following the Emperor and took just a single picture of it but it turned out to be good enough to identify it (a miracle in itself) as a Eurasian Baskettail Epitheca bimaculata (toflekklibelle) and a new species for me. This species whilst not a newcomer is probably even rarer than the Emperor and is categorised as Near Threatened on the Norwegian Red List with an estimated population of under 1000 reproducing individuals. So this was quite the find and very unexpected. It looks as though this pond might be quite the odonata hotspot but it really does not look that special and was only created three years ago. The area generally lacks ponds which also makes its quick colonization by a number of species interesting but I think that generally there are so few people interested in odonata in Norway that there must be loads to find out there if you visit new sites. There are a few listers but they generally vist the same couple of sites for the rare species so if you are in it then you may well win it - but to be clear I am definitely not in it when it comes to dragonflies - just lucky.
A much more satisfying picture of the Emperor (storkeiserlibelle)
And the Eurasian Baskettail (toflekklibelle). The 2 dark flecks at the base of the hind wing are not visible in this photo but everything else matches
The pond behind an imposing fence and locked gate
It was possible to get closer by going down the side of the fence which is where today’s photos are taken from
After I wrote this but before publishing I visited again and this time met the guys behind the place and got a guided tour😊 They are indeed farming ecological fruit and veg on land they cleared which was previously a spruce plantation. They have loads of wild areas, 5 ponds in total and it is a great place. Their website is https://eijos.no/
Despite being let in behind the wire I did not get much better pictures of the dragons or discover too much more but it was by then very hot. The Emperor was not on the same pond as earlier but what I presume to be the same beast was patrolling another of the ponds 500m away. Disappointingly the Baskettail was not to be seen and was perhaps a prospecting individual?
The pond which now held a (the) Emperor
And the photos of the Emperor from the second pond:
