Almyros Wetlands

Betty and Bert looked dashing with their multi pocketed jackets, thick trousers and wellington boots. They also looked somewhat incongruous, as all of our similarly attired group did, as we trudged along the sandy beach between two rows of scantily clad sunbathers on sun loungers. Magnanimously ignoring the stares and giggles we eventually crossed the little bridge at the end and squelched our way along a marshy path through the Giant Canes to the river bank. A Western Caspian Turtle, Mauremys rivulata, surprised at the sudden appearance of our motley crew, faltered in mid stroke and dived into the weeds at the bottom.

As we took it in turns to gain access to the river bank the remaining members of the party investigated the undergrowth. Bert suddenly dived in among a patch of smaller reeds and emerged triumphantly with a Praying Mantis, Mantis religiosa.

“Do they bite?” asked Betty.

“They can take a male's head off during mating,” I informed her.

Betty paused to consider this, “Oh, I don't think that Bert's likely to do that with it,” she said.

I wonder about Betty sometimes.

Our next find among the reeds was a whole mass of Paper Wasps, (Polistes sp.) at the nest. There are over three hundred different species and subspecies of Paper Wasps around the world and hymenopterists (the bods who study Ants, Bees and Wasps) keep themselves endlessly amused trying to sort them all out. Currently, the name Polistes bucharensis is gaining favour for the predominantly Greek species but it has been noted¹ that the Cretan Paper Wasps have slightly different features to those found on the mainland so, who knows, maybe an endemic subspecies is in the offing? They are not generally aggressive wasps but they will defend the nest if you annoy them.

“What sort of things annoy them?” asked Betty.

“Sticking a bloomin' great camera lens up their backsides for a start,” I replied as she wriggled in to get a closer shot.

Elated with our finds thus far we followed the trail towards the spring and pond that feeds this very short but amazingly wide river. (The river length from pond to sea is about 200m). Proceeding in crocodile fashion we came upon an obstacle. Somebody had extended their garden into the wetlands and obliterated the path.

“Humph!” snorted Betty and squeezed through a gap in the ramshackle fencing.

But there was no way through and we had to reverse crocodile back to the beach but it gave us a chance to examine the wonderfully misnamed beach flora. Sea Lavender is not related to Lavender; Sea Daffodils are not true daffodils although they are, at least, in the same subfamily; and Sea Holly isn't even closely related to Holly. Which is why botanists use scientific names, they're not just trying to sound intelligent (not all of them anyway).

We trudged back through the sunbathers, liberally distributing wan smiles as we did so, and made our way to the pond via the main road. A kingfisher darted across the pond as we arrived and I distinctly heard a Greenfinch somewhere in the trees. Unusual at this time of year. But amidst the Muscovy Ducks, Mallards and Domestic Geese on the pond was a bird that I was pleased to see: a Common Moorhen, Gallinula chloropus. Common they may be, generally speaking, but I rarely see them down this end of the island.

1 Zoo Keys: Revision of the West Palaearctic Polistes...

The Taverna Bit

We headed south to the nearby village of Ammoudara for lunch and thanks to all at The Ammoudara Beach Taverna for providing an excellent lunch.

Diary Dates

Stroll #5

Sunday 21^st October

11 am

Bramiana Reservoir, Ierapetra

A lovely place to see autumn birds and much more besides. See Bramiana In Winter and check out the water level in January 2014. It has dropped considerably since then as you will see on Sunday.

Stroll #6

Sunday 28^th October

11 am

Ha Canyon (lower part)

(Details next week)

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 will be available in time for Christmas. Read snippets, samples and stuff at Steve's Books

*********************************************************************

LINKS:

Share your nature thoughts, photos and comments on Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Explore the region with the #CreteNature interactive Hiking and Nature Map

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)

Here We Go Again!

Yes, the autumn equinox is nearly upon us and it's time for me to stop loafing around and take you trundling off around the natural beauties of east Crete once more. Only this time you really can come with me. Series 8 is called Steve's Sunday Strolls and I'll be giving you a couple of weeks notice of where I'll be at 11am on Sunday morning and you can either join me or avoid me, as is your wont. For instance, on Sunday 23^rd of September I shall be here in Sisi.

We'll do a bit of rock pooling along the front and see if we can find some Dice snakes (don't worry, they're not dangerous). Then we'll go around the harbour and explore the inlet and the woods along the far side and finally, if time allows, we'll see if there are any nice birdies out on the spit. Then it's back to the Plori Restaurant-Cafe where we can chat about what we've seen and I'll try and identify anything that you've photographed and tell you a bit about it.

So, bring yourselves, bring a camera, and maybe even a swimming costume and snorkel as we may have a quick dip after our lunch has settled.

I haven't been aestivating completely over the summer months. Steve Lenton (our botanist friend) and I took a trip up on to The Lassithi Plateau where we found a delightful array of wildlife including the amazing Humming Bird Hawk Moth, Macroglossum stellatarum; Grey Heron, Ardea cinera, on the prowl for amphibians such as the European Tree Frog, Hyla arborea; and the female Emperor Dragonfly, Anax imperator, even found some water in the stream (reduced to occasional puddles in the height of summer) to lay some eggs. Incidentally, the Plathiani Lagkada Wildlife Refuge on the southern edge of the Lassithi Plateau will be the venue for our second Sunday Stroll on 30^th September.

I have also been under the sea in a yellow submarine, or to be more accurate, the semi-submarine Nautilus operating out of Agios Nikolaos. Unfortunately we did not see any Loggerhead Turtles, Caretta caretta, but plenty of fish including shoals of Mediterranean Damselfish, Chromis chromis; Bogue, with the marvellous scientific name of Boops boops, and also a fair few Pompano, Trachinotus ovatus, a game fish of the Carangidae family. The undersea windows aren't clear enough for good photography but the human eye is better at adjusting to the mist and the views are quite clear.

I have also put together a book of short stories that I wrote back in the 1980s in which I take a light-hearted look at the human animal, Homo sapiens, in particular the female of the species and how, more often than not, they get the better of us males. One of the stories even has a nature theme and you can read it here for free: Mary and the Spider Man as well as all the necessary info on how to download it to your Kindle. (The paperback version will be available later this year).

That's just about it from me this week. Next week I shall post the Crete Nature Almanack for Autumn and after that we'll be into series 8 proper. 

Don't forget the dates for your diary:

Sunday September 23^rd - Steve's Sunday Stroll: Sisi

Sunday September 30th - Steve's Sunday Stroll: Plathiani Lagkada Wildlife Refuge

The Extra Bit

Death of a Naturalist And some sad news to finish up with: after a long and often arduous fight against cancer I am sorry to have to tell you that my fellow naturalist and wife of 36 years finally lost her battle and died in July aged 68 years. Needless to say, she is very much missed.

*********************************************************************

LINKS:

Share your nature thoughts, photos and comments on Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Explore the region with the #CreteNature interactive Hiking and Nature Map

Upload your photos to https://www.inaturalist.org and help to catalogue the world's biodiversity.

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)

The Urban Wildlife of Agios Nikolaos

Unfortunately we seem to be spending a lot of time in and around hospitals at the moment; in fact Mrs D is collecting hospials and departments like cards in a game of old maid. At the end of March she collected Pneumology from Agios Nikolaos and while we were there samping the delights of their cuisine (one night it was just a plastic bowl of wet rice) I managed to escape a few times and find a bit of peace with the urban wildlife. Here are a few of my favourites:

Fumaria capreolata, White Ramping-Fumitory

I hadn't seen this one before. Apparently the quaint English name indicates that it is a white flower, rearing up, with smoky leaves.

Psilothrix viridicoerulea, Soft-winged Flower Beetle

These are very common over here at this time of year and just look at the amount of pollen he's transferring as he makes his way among the flowers.

Syrphidae, Hoverfly

Beetles, bugs and bees are not the only pollinators of course; flies such as this Hoverfly (here pollinating some Cretan Viper's Grass, Scorzonera cretica), contribute vastly to plant pollination (see The Far Side).

Polistes bucharensis, Umbrella Paper Wasp

Spring, of course, is nest building time and this individual is bosy building her umbrella shaped nest. I'm sticking my neck out a bit with the species identification but for all you hymenopterists out there here is a link to the relevant scientific paper: Revision of the West Palaearctic Polistes Latreille, with the descriptions of two species – an integrative approach using morphology and DNA barcodes (Hymenoptera, Vespidae)

Christian Schmid-Egger,1 Kees van Achterberg,2 Rainer Neumeyer,3 Jérôme Morinière,4 and Stefan Schmidt4

Philaeus chrysops, Goldeneye Jumping Spider

With all these insects about it is no surprise to find a few preatory spiders about. These are both the same species; the one on the left sporting the long, hairy beard is the female and the colourful one on the right is the male.

Limax flavus, Cellar, Tawny Garden or Yellow Slug

Just because you are a slug doesn't mean that you can't make an attempt at looking pretty (in fact some of the sea slugs are prettier than any piece of jewelery). The top two tentacles are it's sight organs and the lower two are its olfactory organs. If the slug loses any of them through not pulling it in quick enough it can grow a new one.

The Extra Bit

You may be wondering where all the larger animals such as the urban fox are - well, the fox never made it to Crete. We have our own subspecies of Badger and Hedgehog but I didn't see any in the town. As for the birds, I didn't get to photograph any but I was serenaded by a beautiful nightingale as I slipped out of the hospital for a cigarette at four in the morning.

Next time: something for the butterfly lovers. See you soon, Steve.

Photographic Bit

Many of you have asked me what photographic equipment I use so for details of aperture settings, shutter speeds etc. my pictures will be on Flickr within a few days and that has all the geeky stuff.Pictures were edited with FastStone Image Viewer and combined with Microsoft Paint.

*********************************************************************

LINKS:

Share your nature thoughts, photos and comments on Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Explore the region with the #CreteNature interactive Hiking and Nature Map

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)

New Friends and Other Animals

Something a little different this week; we are not alone. We have been invited to walk through the Kritsa Gorge and admire the wonders of nature with a few other like minded souls. So, without further preamble let us join our intrepid fellow explorers in the village of Kritsa, a few miles to the south west of Agios Nikolaos.

Stonecrop, Sedum litoreum var. creticum

Our hosts for the day are Yvonne and Alan Payne and as Alan bounds up the hill like a mountain goat with the stronger members of the party we’ll tarry on behind at our usual pace. Someone has helpfully placed a set of rough, cobbled steps up the hillside which, Yvonne informs me are either Minoan or Dorian. I resist the urge to speculate that as they are gray they must be Dorian as it is a little too early in the morning for atrocious puns. Catching up with Rosemary John and Steve Lenton, both of whom are serious botanists, we find them musing over some striking little yellow, star shaped flowers growing out of the rock walls which they have identified as Sedum litoreum var. creticum. That’s Stonecrop to you and me. It’s as well to introduce you to them now as, like botanists everywhere, they’ll be jabbering away in Latin for the rest of the day and we won’t get a word of sense out of them. Incidentally stonecrop is not just a pretty flower, it’s a favourite of the bio-architects who design living roofs. The Rolls-Royce car plant in the UK and the Nintendo facility in the US are covered in acres of the things.

Songbirds above Kritsa Gorge

Good. That’s the serious climbing over and done with and the views from the summit are well worth the effort.  This is songbird country and Lynne and Anne are wondering how some people can identify so many different bird species by their song. I shall endeavour to give a few tips with reference to the birds we can hear around us, a task made somewhat difficult by a large herd of bell bedecked goats who appear to be attempting one of Stockhausen’s more complex cantatas in various keys, mostly of their own devising. The trick is to identify the four or five commonest birds in your area and we have four of Lassithi’s regulars up here singing their hearts out now. You don’t have to memorise the whole song but just pick out certain features. The Chaffinch, for example, incorporates descending trills like a pianist going down the keyboard, the Greenfinch punctuates and ends his phrases with a long wheeze, the Blackbird has a very liquid, bubbly song reminiscent of water trickling over pebbles and the Sardinian Warbler has a peculiar rattle in his phrases which seems out of place at first but then seems to blend in on an indefinable level (back to Stockhausen again). Once you can recognize your local birds and have them firmly lodged in your mind you can tune them out and listen for the less common birds. Listen, look and lodge in memory and you begin to build up a library of bird songs that will stay with you for all time.

Pointed Snails on limestone w

We are now beginning the descent into the gorge itself so watch your footing. Passing an old donkey grinding mill on the way (that’s a grinding mill operated by donkeys rather than a mill for grinding donkeys) and the last of the pyramid orchids still flowering in the shady hollows we now reach the base which is littered with stream smoothed boulders. The limestone walls have been carved into weird and grotesque shapes by the spring torrents of meltwater from the Dhikti mountains and Cynthia points out some curious creatures adhered to them. These are Pointed Snails and they hang in clusters like strange fruits, their shells made of the very limestone to which they are attached. Although it is only early May the water responsible for these sculptures has now gone and the gorge is dry and sere, a fact which I have been bemoaning at intervals to other members of the group for the wildlife is scarce.

                                                                                                           

An echoing shout from up ahead, “Steve! Alan’s got a present for you.”

Crane Flies mating

In my haste I grab an overhanging carob branch for support which promptly cracks with a loud report. This causes everyone to turn and look as I flail about on top of a boulder, like a Victorian monkey-on-a-stick toy, trying to regain my balance. My explanation that I was only taking a sample of the tree branch to illustrate a biological feature of its bark is met with deserved scepticism. Alan is triumphantly indicating my ‘present’ which, from here, appears to be Anne sitting demurely on a rock. A closer approach however shows that she is sitting above a pool of brackish water which is almost as exciting a prospect. The water contains much as we would expect from our previous explorations, the midge and/or mosquito larvae for instance that we examined in some detail in Nature is Winning, but do you notice these strange little cases near the water’s edge? These are the pupa cases left by the large numbers of Crane Flies that are drifting about and getting in our faces. Look at this pair mating on the rock wall here. You can get closer, although they look like gigantic mosquitoes they’re totally inoffensive little animals and don’t bite. Do you see the two rods with black blobs on the end under the wings of the one facing downwards? These are called halteres and all flies have them, in fact it’s part of what makes a fly a fly and separates them from other insects. Back in their evolutionary history these were their hind wings and then, one day, a gene flipped on during metamorphosis and the hind wings failed to develop. This was not bad news however  the little stub that was  left acted as a gyroscope which is why flies have such remarkable aerial agility.

The motley crew taking a break

And now a rest stop before we negotiate our way back out and over the top.

“There are only a couple of difficult bits after this,” says Alan, jovially. 

By which he probably means the first bit and the second bit. I’m getting wise to Alan’s reassurances by now. If he says it’s all ‘plain sailing’ expect to wade through five feet of unexpected water. Ah well, onwards and upwards as the saying goes. He’s not kidding about the difficult bits is he? I’ve just seen Cynthia, a veteran hiker with more years experience of this kind of terrain than she would care to admit to, stoutly negotiating a vertical drop with the aid of her walking stick where I’d have preferred to use ropes and the odd belay or two. Keep going, only a couple of hundred feet of climbing to get out of the gorge.

And so finally, five and a half hours later, we arrive back at the village and a welcome taverna and with only one minor casualty. (Yvonne sustained a sprained ankle whilst trying to perform a particularly advanced pirouette on top of a loose boulder and perfectly demonstrated Newton’s Law of Gravitational Attraction as a result). Until next week, when I promise you something a little gentler – happy hunting.

The motley crew in the photograph are (clockwise from top left): Anne Roxy, Yvonne and Alan Payne, Lynne McDonald, Rosemary John, Steve Lenton, Cynthia Pay.

***********************************************************************************

LINKS:

Yvonne Payne is the author of Kritsopoula, Girl of Kritsa – the compelling story of local girl Rodanthe during Crete's Ottoman oppression. Yvonne’s Blog: http://kritsayvonne.com/

Available in paperback and e-book from Silverwood Books and  Amazon.co.uk .  in the UK and Amazon.com. worldwide.

Lynne McDonald runs Lassithi’s premier bookshop, Eklektos Books in Elounda, with her husband John where you can also buy a copy of Kritsopoula amongst a wide and eclectic collection of books. http://eloundabooks.blogspot.co.uk/

Steve Lenton hosts a highly recommended website Cretan Flora providing an illustrated guide to the Flora of Crete which is easy to navigate for the novice flower spotter and full of technical information for the professional botanist.

And of course there’s also my own Naturalists Group (the facebook page that accompanies this blog).

Other helpful links include:

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)