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| Painted Lady |
We
had a wonderful year together in 2014 looking at all the fascinating aspects of
nature in the South East of Crete and sometimes beyond. Identifying plants,
birds and insects and finding out a little bit about them. There will be more
of the same this year but we’ll be looking deeper into what happens and why in
the natural world. So be prepared to get your hands and knees dirty as we get
down close and personal with nature.
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| Left to Right: Skylark, Stone-chat, Chaffinch |
But
first, some phenology.
There are a few birds that I recorded in January between 2004 and 2010 that I
haven’t seen in January since. These are: Chaffinch, Dunlin, Pied Flycatcher
and Kestrel. So let’s go down to the
olive groves near Long Beach where the undergrowth is not too dense and see if
we can find some Chaffinches and maybe a Flycatcher. Here we are and what a
pleasant greeting – a pair of Painted Lady Butterflies pirouetting in the
sunlight. You toddle off over that waste ground where there are plenty of posts
and things which make good vantage points for Flycatchers to ambush unwary
insects and I’ll scour the olive grove for Chaffinches. We’ll meet back here in an hour and compare
notes. What have you found? Plenty of White Wagtails and a nice Stonechat but
not a hint of a Flycatcher, Pied or otherwise. No matter, it’s all useful data.
I’ve had a little more luck. I’ve found some skylarks running around but also
three or four Chaffinches.
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| Red-veined Darter (female) |
While
we’re here I noticed a damp hollow with a couple of red dragonflies darting
about. Both the Common Darter and the Scarlet Darter are on our “to find list”
for January so let’s go and see if we can identify them. That’s a bit of a surprise, a Red-veined
Darter. She’s rather an elderly lady which is only to be expected as I
generally see them no later than November. See the yellow patch at the base of
the wing? That’s one of the identification keys. The Scarlet Darter has a
bright orange patch and the Common and Southern Darters have none at all.
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| The micro world of Moss |
Back
in Victorian England in the nineteenth century there was a passing fad for
creating Mosseries, either in the garden or in glass jars called terrariums,
and I thought we’d have a go at reviving the fad by starting our own this
winter (you can all join in with this one. I’ve put some simple instructions up
in the Naturalists
Group on Facebook). Mosses are plants of course and
along with Hornworts and Liverworts make up the phylum Bryophyta. Mosses are
totally distinct from flowering plants in a number of ways, one of which is
that they start life as spores rather than seeds.
These spores develop into
thread like structures called protonema and become sexually mature as
gametophytes. These are responsible for producing sperm and eggs and produce
the familiar carpet of moss. The long stilts which poke up from this carpet are
called sporophytes and the capsules on the end (called sporangia) contain new spores which starts the whole
cycle again.
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| Insect Eggs |
It
looks like our mossary may become an insectarium as I’ve just discovered some
little yellow eggs in amongst our moss scrapings. I haven’t a clue what they
are although I’d hazard a guess at some sort of fly. We’ll just have to wait
and see if they hatch.
This
is a brief taste of what’s to come this year. We’ll be out and about together
trying to fill in the gaps in the phenology record and making a lot of new
observations (and maybe some new discoveries). I’ll be starting a few projects
to get your teeth into (and they’re not just for children – there’s no reason
why an erudite professor of physics or a CEO of an international company
shouldn’t have a mossary on their desks); and I dare say we’ll have more lunches
and a few courtyard chats like we did last year.
As
a species we need to know a lot more about the planet we live on than we do at
present. If we are to continue to evolve and survive the sixth mass extinction into
which we have put ourselves and all other life on Earth with reckless abandon
then every scrap of information counts. So get photographing and get involved
with data collectors such as iNaturalist
or Project Noah and add your observations. One to add to your New Year’s Resolutions
this year: make a contribution to world knowledge. Until next week – happy
hunting.
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LINKS:
Naturalists
(the facebook page that accompanies this blog)
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