Mid July Oslo birds

I have had a few trips into Maridalen where birds rather than bugs have been the focus (this isn’t a difficult prioritising as there is so much often skies and rain at the moment).

Red-backed Shrikes have been the poster bird with the two pairs I had found in the spring increasing to four pairs now that the young are out of the nest and the birds suddenly become more visible. The two new pairs are right by the road so I feel a slight birding failure for not having noticed them in June. The young leave the nest when they can only fly a few metres but quickly grow their wings and can make a lot of noise as they follow their parents around and beg for food. Mum normally disappears within a few days of the young leaving the nest and it is dad who has responsibility for them for the few weeks it takes for them to become independent.

A brown Common Rosefinch was my first sighting of the species in Maridalen this year where there have been no other sightings indicative of breeding and this species seems to be having a poor year in south east Norway which is on the back of last year which was also poor.

I have not had too many sightings of raptors except for Hobby where I have finally discovered this years nest (more on that in a later post).

The only Lapwings left in Maridalen are an adult and large juvenile on the field at Skjerven and I fear this may be the only youngster that reaches maturity. The year started so well with many nests and subsequent broods but I fear that foxes have turned to young birds this year when there is a cyclical absence of rodents.

Nutcrackers have started their commutes into the city to collect hazel nuts and are becoming a common site including one today that was collecting seeds from fallen pines cones by a McDonalds drive through today – now that’s Urban birding 😊

male Red-backed Shrike (tornskate). This male is from a pair I have followed since June and they had initially 3 young but just 2 were left yesterday

here is one of them

the same male

and with both surviving and begging young

the other youngster with a lovely red tail

dad with a couple of Goldfinches (stillits)

one of the juvs with a Wryneck (vendehals)

Wrynecks just disappear after they have left the nest and as they are silent in the autumn are seen very infrequenelt. This bird is I think a bird of the year

my first Common Rosefinch (rosenfink) of the year in Maridalen

the Whooper Swan (sangsvane) pair with four young which may now be reduced to only three

Hobby (lerkefalk) this is the female of the pair although I can only tell them apart from the way behave and then close study of the photos

juvenile Whinchat (buskskvett) - a pair I have followed has 3 noisy youngsters

the female

Mid July in Oslo and bugs are in focus

Since returning to Oslo my interest in winged creatures has been rather reduced and as fits mid July it has been bugs rather than birds that I have focused on.

Over the last few years I have been in Oslo for parts of July far more than ever before and have spent time checking local stands of trees for hairstreak butterflies and have found White-letter and Purple to be relatively common although still far from easy to find. This year I noticed for the first time 3 elms only 50m from the house (goodness knows how I have failed to register them before) and quickly found White-letter on them which means the chance of finding one in the garden must be quite high. I have found them at 4 different sites this year including once when playing tennis with Jr in Oslo’s main park – Frognerparken. Purple Hairstreaks have been a bit harder to find but I have found them at my two regular sites and even had one very briefly on the ground but too briefly to get a photo. The weather has now turned wet and grey so it will be a while before I can again look for them but the White-letters at least were already egg legging so the weather will hopefully not affect their population.

On the dragonfly front I checked out a small forest marsh in Maridalen that I have often thought of visiting with the hope of finding Large Heath (myrringvinge). There was no joy on that front although it may have been too late in the season but to my surprise found two very localised dragonflies – Bog Hawker (torvmoselibelle) and Nothern Emerald (myrmetallibelle). The Hawker was a new species for me and the Emerald a new self-found species after I have previously only seen them at an already known site. This now puts me on a still modest 33 species of odonate in Norway (out of 52 recorded species) but all but one of these is self found which I think is good going. I have previously given up on finding the Bog Hawker due to its similarities with the far commoner Moorland Hawker (starrlibelle) but as soon as I saw them and the very special habitat – just a couple of small pools of open water surrounded by very wet mossy bog which was coated with flesh eating sundew plants – I was sure I was on to something. They were less brightly coloured than Moorland Hawkers and I managed some pictures (they are always in flight which is another thing that has previously reduced my motivation to try to find them) that allowed me to see enough of the few and very small distinguishing features to be confident of their ID.

an exciting little forest bog that I will have to remember to visit earlier next year

my first Bog Hawker (torvmoselibelle). Features that distinguish it from the far commoner and more widespread Moorland Hawker (starrlibelle) are the horizontal line on the face widening at the base, there being some (3?) pale marks between the two wide strips on the thorax, black behind eye (see next picture) and the blue on S2 is split into two (see next picture)

male Northern Emerald (myrmetallibelle)

and a female with characteristic yellow spots on S2

here over a carpet of sundews

English Sundew (smalsoldogg)

and Round-leaved Sundew (rundsoldogg)

my new elm trees by the petrol station over the road from the house

and one of the two White-letter Hairstreaks (almestjertvinge) I saw on them

the one I saw whilst playing tennis

and an egg laying female

a Purple Hairstreak (eikestjertvinge)

a colourful Golden-ringed Dragonfly (kongelibelle) with what looks like a wasp in its jaws

and a Small Pincertail/Green-eyed Hooktail (tangelvlibelle) at a new site for me

and last of all another type of bug altogether - a Musk Beetle (moskosbukk) 

Beitostølen summer 2023 Butterflies

When in Beitostølen I find that butterflies take up more and more of time although I think that I have now found pretty much every species I can hope to see in the area with the exception of Large Grizzled Skipper (alvesmyger) of which there a couple of old records and which I am sure can be found if I search suitable habitat.

Butterflies obviously require nice sunny weather to be watched and this year there was more rain than we normally experience but I did have 3 days when conditions were good.

Highlights for me this year was multiple sightings of Large Heath (myrringvinge) and also amazing numbers of Alpine Blues (fjellblåvinge).

male Alpine Blue (fjellblåvinge)

15 licking salts

and here 29 which is more than I had previously ever seen in total!

a Large Heath (myrringvinge)

and the similar but noticeably smaller Small Heath (engringvinge) 

Silver Spotted Skipper (kommasmyger)

which is a lot easier to identify from below. These belong to the subspecies catena which is the mountain form

Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge)

and another one

Cranberry Fritillary (myrperlemorvinge)

male Scarce Copper (oransjegullvinge)

and female Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge)

and another female Purple-edged. Interestingly I only saw males of Scarce and female of Purple-edged and often in the same place

a Northern Brown Argus (sankthasblåvinge) and a Geranium Argus (bun blåvinge). This year I saw only a few of the former but many of the later.

a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary (brunflekket perlemorvinge)

and an abberation of the same species with very heavily marked upperwings

Small Blues (dvergblåvinge)

I have only seen this species here once before and the underwing very closely resembles that of Mazerine Blue (engblåvinge) which is the commonest blue in the area and which can vary enormously in size.

here is Amanda. The row of black spots on the upperwing curves over at the top whereas they continue in a straight line in the Small