Back to Beitostølen

Summer holiday 2022 continues with our usual July visit to Beitostølen. After the birding success of my two trips here in the spring I have  been taking a holiday from the feathered flying things and rather focusing on the buttery flying things.

As I detailed in posts from last year the area is very good for butterflies. This is in no small part due to the flower covered roadsides and it really is a joy to walk here with your eyes pointing down rather than up. I have only found one new species for the area - Small Blue (dvergblåvinge), but have seen most of the (for me) interesting species I saw last time such as Silver-spotted Skipper (kommasmyger), Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge), Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge), Mountain Fritillary (fjellperlemorvinge), Germainium Argus (brun blåvinge), Northern Brown Argus (sankthansblåvinge) and best of all Alpine Argus (fjellblåvinge).

The Alpine Argus require a 40 minute drive to the north of Valdresflye and I got there early on a warm morning. When I arrived it was cloudy and no butterflies were flying. As I walked around though I discovered a number of Alpine Argus perched on flowers which was presumably where they had spent the night. I had to wait quite a while for the sun to come through but when it did it was quite amazing to watch the effect on the butterflies. It took only 5 minutes for them to change from being in a state of torpor to them flying energetically around and becoming increasingly difficult to get close to. A number of other species also appeared from unknown hiding places and life was good 😊 

I’ll start with a bird - Shore Lark (fjelllerke)

Alpine Argus (fjellblåvinge) before the sun warmed it up

Male with wings after the sun had warmed it up

Female Alpine Argus (fjellblåvinge)

For comparison a male Common Blue (tiriltungeblåvinge)

And a Mazarine Blue (engblåvinge)

Not many dragons up here but I was very happy to get this picture of a Brilliant Emerald (glansmetallibelle)