Beitostølen summer 2023 Birds

The last week was spent as is tradition in Beitostølen. This year we had the company of Sr1 and Sr2 over from Blighty and it was definitely birding lite on my part although I did use a bit of time on butterflies when the weather allowed (which will be the subject of my next post).

It was 5 weeks since I was on Valdresflya with Conor and the hot June had caused all the snow to melt. It was still a late melt though and there were few birds to find with especially passerines such as Meadow Pipit and Wheatear as good as absent from the higher areas. One bird that was absent on our visit in June was Dotterel but I found an incubating male this time right by a path. In fact it was him would found me as he was suddenly, and silently, at my feet doing a distraction display. After walking on he quickly returned to his nest. I wanted to show him to the Seniors but could not find him when I returned (I had expected him to make himself known again) but Sr1 outdid himself by locating him on the nest and he did not once move whilst we watched him. I assume when there is more than one predator close to the nest that sitting tight and hoping the camouflage works is a better tactic than trying the distraction display.

Otherwise we had close encounters with Long-tailed Ducks which were taking insects off the water alongside Tufted Ducks and Teal.

The only raptors (or owls) of the whole week were singles of Kestrel and Merlin. The Merlin was clearly breeding and as a bird specialist it will be far less affected by the lack of rodents that causes the absence of other raptors.

Pied Flycatchers seemed to be very numerous with fledged young seen and a pair was feeding young in a box by our cabin and allowed me to witness the behaviour that I had hoped to watch in the garden this year. The male would feed within 20m of the nest box and found endless quantities of insects and his presence probably was the reason we could sit outside without being bothered by mosquitoes.

I paid just a quick visit to the Great Snipe lek to assure myself it was still in use (which it was) but did not take any pictures.

male Dotterel (boltit)

spot him?

male Long-tailed Duck (havelle)

female

female Merlin (dvergfalk)

male Pied Flycatcher (svarthvit fluesnapper) with a mouthful of food

with a moth

and a male Redstart (rødstjert) with a caterpillar that it was taking to a fledged youngster

we were used to the Pied Flys giving alarm calls whenever Magpies (skjære) were around but one morning it was the Magpies that were alarm calling and the reason was an Adder!

New species of butterfly

My second instalment from my 24 hour bonanza is butterflies. Once I had decided to go for the displaying Mountain Marsh Runner I was keen to have good weather so I could also search for butterflies as I knew there were a number of new species I could hope to see in the general area. Luckily all that week there was a heat wave so weather was perfect for butterflies even early in the mornings.

I started my butterfly search the first afternoon by revisiting the site where I saw Apollo last July. I had no idea if any were already on the wing but was looking forward to finding out. And I was not to be disappointed with at least 4 individuals seen. Unfortunately they were flying a long way up the very steep mountain side but this just made it even more dramatic to watch them gliding high above me. Once one did come down low and flew past me but none ever stopped long on a flower and seemed more interested in chasing each other.

This site is very good for butterflies generally and I added my first new species with a Northern Wall Brown (bergringvinge). This species is not particularly rare in southern Norway although does appear to be genuinely so Oslo (I can find only one good record although there are a number of other reports but these all are clear misidentifications of the similar Large Wall Brown (klipperingvinge). As it flies early in the year it is normally not on the wing when I have visited appropriate sites away from Oslo but this time I was lucky 😊

After this I stopped at a roadside site where there was a report of the very scarce Violet Copper (fiolett gullvinge) in 2020. The report was of a single butterfly and when I arrived and saw the habitat of a cut verge by very average looking commercial spruce forest I did not think it looked very promising at all. As soon as I got out of the car though I saw a butterfly and sure enough it was my target. I had clearly not done by homework as it was a much smaller and to be honest duller butterfly than I had expected (I was expecting to find it more impressive than the already very impressive Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge) but that was not the case). I walked a 150m stretch of the verge which had recently been rather harshly cut and saw a handful of individuals and then noticed that behind a row of trees there was a powerline and that it had been cleared of trees underneath. I walked back under the cables and boy was that a good decision – the area was crawling with them and I had at least 100 in the 150 metres back to the car. I have looked at records of this species from Norway and cannot find a site where more than 20 have ever been recorded so it looks like I must have bumped into the best site in Norway…!! The area appeared to be nothing special (I saw hardly any other butterflies) and the powerlines and similar vegetation seemed to extend for kilometres in both directions so there are likely to be thousands in the area. I think this is a species where people have traditionally gone to the same small number of sites to see the species and have not searched elsewhere so there must be the chance of a number of similar good sites existing elsewhere.

The next afternoon I visited one of the well known sites for the species, which was again a road verge by spruce forest, and saw only 2 individuals in again ca.150 metres. I had a hope of finding Chequered Skipper (gulflekksmygger) here but did not succeed.

My big hope for new butterflies was to be from visiting an extensive forest marshland. I thought I had a chance of 4 new species although knew I would be unlikely to succeed with all of them and thought that two would be good and it ended up being good! There were not many butterflies to see on the marsh and to begin with I saw just a few Green Hairstreaks and a Swallowtail but then a relatively large and dark fritillary flew past. I very much suspected that this was one of targets namely Frigga’s Fritillary (friggs perlemorvinge). It was flying fast and briefly pausing to check out things and was I am sure a male looking for a female. I initially tried to run after it but after 5 minutes realised the futility of this as it never stopped but did seem to follow a route. Instead I stood still and eventually I saw it stop on a flower and it stopped long enough for me to run up to it and get some very satisfactory photos. One down! Very disappointingly I saw no other fritillaries or ringlets (I had a vague hope of finding Bog Fritillary (ringperlemorvinge), Arctic Ringlet (disas ringvinge) or Lapland Ringlet (emblas ringvinge)) but there was still one species to look for and eventually the small thing that flew up in front of me was not a moth of some kind but a skipper and Northern Grizzled Skipper (moltesmyger) was number 2 for the marsh and number 4 for the trip.

I have now seen 71 species of the 103 seen in Norway and am looking forward to finding some more!

Frigga's Fritillary (friggs perlemorvinge)

I am not sure whether we are just seeing the light shining through the hind wing or if it is an abberation

I had previously managed this single picture when it paused in flight which doesn't show any strange markings on the upperwing so maybe I did see 2 different individuals

and my first Northern Grizzled Skipper (moltesmygger)

and now Violet Coppers (fiolett gullvinge) - here a mating pair

a male I believe

this must be a female

female

male?

the very unassuming habitat which the butterflies clearly loved

and from the second well visited site

my first Northern Wall Brown (bergringvinge)

the three lines coming off the front of the wing plus the shape of the black line inside of the eye help distinguish from Large Wall Brown (klipperingvinge)

distant Apollo

New damselfly and Kingfisher

Weather in the evenings was not conducive to Nightjars so I was unable to enjoy one from the veranda with glass of wine in hand but daytime weather was good and some nice walks were enjoyed. One to a very picturesque village by a slow moving river (really not very Norwegian at all and more like England) had me thinking odonate. I know that these types of rivers are where you have a chance of finding the very localised Common Clubtail (klubbelvelibelle) and set about looking for any dragons or damsels. I only had two dragons, one was a patrolling Brilliant Emerald (glansmetallibelle) and the other which flew past at great speed was most likely the one I was looking for but it was gone too quickly. A damselfly caught my attention and I quickly realised it was a new one for me and remembered that also scarce White-legged Damselfly (fjærbeinvannymfe) also likes this habitat and that was what it was and a new odonate was in the bag!

The river also screamed Kingfisher to me and sure enough I soon heard and then saw one as it flew back and forth along the river and I am sure there was breeding close by. As far as I know this river is not a known locality for the species but that may just be because nobody has checked before.

male White-legged Damselfly (fjærbeinvannymfe)

Brilliant Emerald (glansmetallibelle)

male Kingfisher (isfugl)

he is ringed on his right leg

probably our most intensely coloured butterfly - Scarce Copper (oransjegullvinge)

and my first Queen of Spain Fritillary (sølvkåpe) of the year