Summer holidays 2025 - the start of the end

The final part of the summer holiday is beginning and for the first time since 2022 I will be back spending time at the cabin outside of Bodø, north of the Arctic Circle. Jr and I drove up starting from Oslo at 08:55 yesterday and we covered 1281km in 23 hours and 50 minutes with less than an hour of that used for sleep but including 5 stops for birding/butterflying and dog airing. When you drive north through the night in the middle of the summer it never gets dark and that helps keep tiredness as bay although once we got to the cabin we felt it.

Apart from the stops the drive up was extremely bird and animal free with the total of big/interesting species observed (excluding Cranes which are getting almost too common) being 2 Common Buzzard, 3 Kestrel, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Raven, 1 Fox, 1 Hare and 4 Moose. This is an appalling total!!

The stops were for Apollo butterfly which was a quick success, Pallid Harrier which was a dip although a male Hen Harrier did show, Ørin in Trøndelag for waders which was also a dip, Saltfjellet on the Arctic Circle where Red-necked Phalaropes and Ruff were good but no raptors or Long-tailed Skuas and finally 35 minutes from the cabin Klungsettvika where they were alarmingly few sea ducks but hopefully my stop was too fleeting and further visits will deliver more.

At the cabin a pair of Common Gulls has nested on the roof and two large young are still there with the parents guarding them - it will be a noisy stay!

Apollo butterfly - a beautiful beast of an insect

A bit more distant

There were also a couple of Hummingbird Hawk Moths (dvergsvermer)

Saltfjellet looking south

My first ever Lesser Teatblade orchid (småtveblad) which were tiny

Red-necked Phalaropes (svømmesnipe)

The view from the cabin and I have already seen Common Porpoise (nise) and Arctic Skua (tyvjo)

I heard the Porpoises (nise) before I saw them

Summer holidays - heading south

Our summer holidays are far from over but part 2 at the cabin in Bodø is over and I am writing this whilst we are driving back south.

The time at the cabin ended with a new, and my 66th Norwegian species of, butterfly when I again visited the alpine habitats around Sulitjelma and found a species I have long wanted to see - Northern Couded Yellow, which is orange on the upperside and impossible to miss as it flutters over the tundra. It was also much more approachable than the Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow which I again found and despite it  quickly disappearing over the mountainside I manged OK pictures of it on the ground hiding in grass.

A quick stop on Saltfjellet as we crossed the Arctic Circle revealed the strange sight of 14 noisy Long-tailed Skuas and 2 Arctic Terns flying around high up seemingly catching flying insects.

Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge)

The undersidenwoth the sun shing through and showing the orsnge colours

The underside

A much better picture of a Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow (polargulvinge)

Golden Plover (heilo)

With the Blåmannsisen glacier in the background

Wigeon (brunnakke) duckling

Wigeon mum

Whooper Swan (samgsvane) family

6 Long-tailed Skuas (fjelljo)

Long-tailed Skua and Arctic Tern (rødnebbterne)

Female Bluethroat (blåstrupe) who clearly had young nearby

False musk orchid (fjellkurle)

habitat of Northern Clouded Yellow

Vanilla scented bog orchid (Fjellhvitkurle)

This balloon was floating over the cabin at 130,000 ft (39.6km) and is the size of a football stadium with an instrument to measure cosmic rays hanging under it. It was launched from Sweden by NASA. more info here  https://sites.wustl.edu/xlcal/home/

Godbye to the Cabin and the long drive home

The drive home from Bodø to Oslo is long but there are plenty of birding opportunities along the way

the fox seemed to sense that we were leaving and came to say goodbye to us as we packed up to leave the cabin

a railway runs across Saltfjellet and this Bluethroat used the rails as a vantage point to watch my progress and scold me if I came too close

this Redpoll was attracted by the scolding Bluethroat and also followed me from the train tracks

 

Long-tailed Skuas are one of those mountain species that do not seem to view humans a threat and allow very close approach

 

 

 

this male Red-necked Phalarope clearly had young nearby but I never saw them

Redshanks breed up on Saltfjellet but I had to look twice at this individual and when it flew....

it revealed it was a Spotted Redshank and a very early juvenile

the type that breeds up there: Common Redshank

A stop at Dovre on te way back gave me my first ever Muskox but they were no more than dark blobs that moved very slowly along the mountainsde

female Redstart

my attempt for Siberian Tit in Southern Norway produced, yet again, just Willow Tits

and another video