The Quiet Picture

You know you’re in the mountains when a herd of reindeer runs past your window while you’re having breakfast!

Today’s planned excursions were the Hamrafjället and Vättafjället mountains. Hamrafjället is something that no botanist should pass by, in fact the nature is so special that it’s protected as a national park. Just a few metres from the parking lot, and I already found an orchid that is definitely no orchid I’ve ever seen – a hybrid if there ever was one. Part spotted heath orchid, part… frog orchid? A bit further up, I found an orchid that was a genuine species, and a new one for me. Small white orchid (Pseudorchis albida), just the one, so I didn’t have many options for shooting it. And it also seems to be a touch past its prime. Regardless, it counts! I’ve added the image to the orchids page on minnak.net.

Despite the multitude of flowers in the forest, the first real attraction on the excursion was a large marshy area just below the forest line with no less than six different species of orchids plus other flowers. Despite this, I did surprisingly little shooting, just a few frames to add some species to my collection but nothing serious. Until I found two butterflies resting on a fragrant orchid, that is. The butterflies were clearly alive as they moved a little every once in a while, but otherwise they were just sitting tight on the flower and didn’t even mind me removing some grass blades. Shooting was tricky though, because the flower was constantly swaying in the wind. I rattled off a good few frames (try 42) to make sure that I got at least one which is sharp, and that’s just about the result I got. Glad it’s digital!

Time flies on these excursions, and this one had taken over 5 hours even if the distance was just a couple of kilometres. I headed back to cabin for a much needed late lunch, and then drove to Tänndalen to catch the trailhead for the Vättafjället excursion, where my guide book had promised that some common spotted orchids would be growing next to the path. Even if I earlier swore that I’ve finally confirmed my discovery of the Dactylorhiza maculata ssp. fuchsii, later on I got some second thoughts about it. So this time… if I see something that reminds me of the species, then surely it must be it! As it happened, I saw one about 20 metres from the parking. And search as I might, it was the only one – the rest of them were more or less definitely Dactylorhiza maculata ssp. maculata. So is this the real McCoy then? I still don’t know! Why can’t I find something that would fulfil all the 4 signs I have for separating these two species from each other?

Another slightly questionable new species I found was Norwegian wintergreen (Pyrola norvegica). Just as with the spotted orchids, P. norvegica and P. rotundifolia were long considered to be the one and same species. The flower looks about the same, but the easiest thing is to look at the leaves – P. norvegica has shiny oval shaped leaves and this wintergreen I found certainly had such. It also looks like the round-leaved wintergreens don’t like the mountains, so the Norwegian (sub-)species takes over instead.

I have taken 249 pictures in two days, that’s a new record for me. The number of keepers is slightly less impressive though…!

My holiday has officially begun! My plan is to spend 3 days in the mountains, come home for a re-pack and then take the ferry to Finland where I will spend the rest of the holiday.My first target was Ljungdalen. I had found a great botanical book about Härjedalen where the author gave some tips on good botanical excursions in the area so I had picked some to do myself. I started with the Torkilstöten mountain and I have got to say a big thank you to the author of the book! It was just simply amazing, with beautiful flowers everywhere. The mountain avens were nearly all withering, but other flowers were in their prime and a whole lot of flowers still only budding. Summer comes late to this mountain with large fields of snow still clinging to the mountainside and I wasn’t surprised to see coltsfoot blooming in one of the meltwater runoffs.

Moss heather (Cassiope hypnoides)

Having spent over four hours on this little mountain, I went for the second excursion I had picked up from the book. The target was to reach the lake Öjön and then continue a little past it. I found different orchids in plentiful – more Dactylorhiza incarnata ssp. cruenta than I’ve seen before – but nothing new, so I didn’t make any real effort to photograph. When I reached the lake, the trail got faint and headed through a thick bush of dwarf birch. I made a half hearted effort to follow and soon decided to turn back. I was getting a bit tired, I was sick of the bugs and there weren’t any new and exciting flowers for me to look at so sitting down for dinner just sounded too good to resist.

I haven’t had time to search for an ID yet…

I think I’ve mentioned a few times that I never get lost. There might be occasions where I don’t know exactly where I am, but my sense of direction rarely fails me so I always find back to something familiar. I have to say, this time I did get lost. I was so concentrated on looking at the orchids that I suddenly realised that I couldn’t see the trail markings anywhere. I found a path of some kind though and I followed it… to a group of mountain cabins, only I didn’t pass any cabins on the way up. I saw some people in the nearest cabin, so I asked them where the parking lot was. Just down that road, they said – ok great, I hadn’t seen a road when I came up but I remembered that the trail had taken off to the right of the parking, so maybe this road came in from the left. Except, it didn’t – it was the wrong parking! So I got back up to the friendly cabin people, showed them my map and pointed out where my car was. It turned out that I had gotten seriously off the trail – I was way out to the north. I’m glad those people were there because I thought I had come too far south and left to my own devices, I would’ve started my search in a completely wrong direction! The irony is that I had my GPS with me – I just didn’t use it to create a track. You know, why waste battery time on tracking because I never get lost…

So I’ve been thinking about trying my hand at butterfly photography. The few feeble attempts I’ve made so far haven’t amounted to much, so I decided that next year I will make a proper effort. But this morning I noticed that the bush in front of my house was getting constant attention from two sorts of butterflies, small tortoiseshells (Aglais urticae) and, umm, this fella below, I’ll gratefully receive any ID help you can spare me…
Happily, that’s full frame (the 300mm + 21mm ext. tube is perfect for the job!) but maybe one day I will learn how to get them to actually face me…