Hulvik hytte

Summer has really arrived in Southern Norway whilst the north which had amazing weather is now sodden. This meant a last minute change to the family's planned holiday at our cabin near Bodø (north of the Arctic Circle) and instead we have had a few days by the sea at Hulvik.
 

Birding is really taking a back seat at the moment and the big lens hasn't been on the camera but some good birds have none the less crossed my path. I went for one nocturnal outing but it was very quiet with just a single Corncrake (åkerrikse) crexing and a couple of encounters with Long-eared Owls (hornugle) to liven things up.
 

Whilst lying on the beach at Krokstrand (which I normally visit during late autumn storms hoping for seabirds) I had a flock of 12 crossbills flying over. But they weren't of the Common variety but of the wing barred variety: Two-barred Crossbill (båndkorsnebb).  An invasion of this species from the east seems to be shaping up and hopefully some flocks will settle down and make good photo subjects.
Raptors have been scarce this summer but one trip to the nearby town of Son to stock up on provisions gave me very close views of a Hobby (lerkefalk) and two Buzzards (musvåk) one of which had a snake dangling from its talons. This area seems to be good for reptiles and on this trip we had smooth worm (stålorm) and grass snake (buorm) and in previous years we have had smooth snake (slettsnok). I also had two glow worms which proved difficult to photograph. Small numbers of butterflies also seem to be finally on the wing in what has for me been an abysmal year for them.
 

A couple of trips to Kurefjorden revealed that autumn passage has already started with ten species of wader and Slavonian Grebes (horndykker).