First cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus) of the year + meeting some ptarmigans in the mountain

The cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus) are a type of fruit we have in Scandinavia, northern Russia, Canada, and Alaska. We typically call them a berry because they look almost like an orange raspberry, but they are in fact a fruit.

A ripe cloudberry.

We typically harvest them in the autumn, but yesterday my wife and I decided to go for a mountain hike with the dogs, and to our surprise we actually found a decent amount of ripe cloudberries. I have never really looked for them in July before, and they are typically not really harvested until August.

Anyway, cloudberries are really popular here in Norway, but they are also notoriously expensive if you buy them at the store. I think they sell for something like $30 per kilo, or some crazy amount like that. I'm not really sure, because if you are willing to hike for a few hours, then you can get as many as you could ever want for free.

Most of the cloudberries were still unripe yet, so we didn't get a chance to fill our freezer just yet, but it was enough to have a nice snack on our way to the mountain peak.

Most of these are unripe, but you can see two ripe ones in this photo.

Meeting a a few ptarmigans

On our way up we met a rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) that wanted to pose a bit for us. For some reason he didn't care that we looked at him 20 meters away!

We also saw a female willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) with five chicks, but she was not as willing to pose. I only have a camera with 55m lens, so I have to get really close to get a good shot of them, so unfortunately the pictures of her turned out a lot worse.

Two chicks in the upper left corner, and the mother in the lower right corner.

And by the way, if you want to pronounce ptarmigan, it's with a silent p, just like the pteradoctyl.

Some more photos of the hike

Wilma got surprisingly good camouflage when she's next to rocks!

There's still snow in some parts of the mountains. These areas that still have snow are shaded almost constantly.

We have a lot of free-ranging sheep in Norway. Farmers typically send their sheep up to the mountains in the spring or early summer, and bring them back down in the autumn. We meet a lot of these when going on hikes here.

Looking down from the peak.

Thanks for stopping by

Thanks for checking out my post about the cloudberries, and the hike I had yesterday. Let me know if you have any questions about any of the species in the photos, or want to know more about typical Norwegian hiking.