Out
& About
Do
you remember that old stone bridge that we crossed at Mirtos
last month? The one where I suggested that whheelchair users would
probably
find it more practical to use the adjoining concreted ford? No
longer; the ford was washed away last week in the fifth major deluge
to hit our island this year. We have had more rain so far this year
than the total rainfall for any of the preceding ten years.
I
thought that we'd take a walk down to the cliffs today to see how
Ferma, which lies between Myrtos and Makry Gialos, has fared. But as
we wend our way down through the olive groves I'll try to explain
what is happening and it is down to our old friend (or new enemy)
climate change. Simply put, the temperature of the Earth is slowly
rising but it is not constant around the globe. Here in south east
Crete we are just under a degree celcius warmer than we were ten
years ago which is much greater than the global average. Warmer air
holds more moisture and it has a tendancy to drop this in torrential
downpours.
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Somehow
we seem to have missed the worst of it. Just a bit of extra water
flowing down the gully which the birds are enjoying. There's a Corn Bunting down there look which I don't often see in these parts
and, rarer still, a pair of Purple Heron flying over the sea. With
all this fresh water laying around it seems strange that they should
choose to come to the coast. Maybe they're spoiled for choice. And...
I've just seen the first swallows of the year. They seem to be
getting later, they used to turn up in the middle of March ten years
or so back.
“They
seek him here, they seek him there,
Those
Frenchies seek him everywhere
Is he in heaven or is he in hell?
That demned elusive Pimpernel”
Is he in heaven or is he in hell?
That demned elusive Pimpernel”
Thus
rhymed Baroness Orczy in her novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Well, here
it is, the diminutive flower after which her hero is named. A toxic
little weed (the flower, not the hero), particularly to livestock. Humans fed with experimental doses of the essential oil suffered
intense nausea, headaches and bodily pain. The ancient Greeks used it
as an antidepressant, presumably on the grounds that all that suffering takes your mind off your less tangible woes.
Fieldcraft
& Foraging
There
are quite a lot of insects about this morning including these three
which turn up regularly in the last week of March or the first week
of April. The exact date is linked to conditions such as light levels
and temperature, which determine when the flowers start to bloom and
thus, directly or indirectly, when food is available. As such, you
can use insects as a rough temperature guide. An American chap took
this to extremes apparently and calculated that 40 + (the number of
chirps made by the Snowy Tree Cricket in 14 seconds) = the
temperature in degrees Farenheit. He obviously had a lot of time on
his hands to come up with that particular piece of fieldcraft.
In
The Lab
The
Painted Ladies are still about but in lesser numbers and last week I
sent a batch of specimens off to the Vanessa cardui migration
project for DNA testing. The point of this, as with all studies of
plant, insect and other bird and animal migrations is to spot changes
in migratory behaviour. For eventually, where the wildlife goes so
too will our own species. 'Climate Refugees' is a term that we will
hear more and more in the years to come and if we can use our
observations of nature to predict where and when human migration will
occur then maybe, just maybe, the governments of the world can
prepare.
Crete
Nature Catch-up
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Steve's
Books (well,
just the one at the moment)
| Not
Just For Twisted Women by Steve Daniels A light-hearted look at life through the eyes of the fairer sex. Kindle Edition 1.99 pounds sterling (or equivalent). Paperback Edition 4.99 pounds sterling (or equivalent).. Read snippets, samples and stuff at Steve's Books |
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Cool! Thankyou Brother
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