The Orchid Hills

The rain has been; the sun is shining and orchids are appearing all over the Kritiweb. I have a confession to make: I am not a great fan of orchids (but I'm sure we'll find some later on for those of you who are). Meanwhile, we have some serious climbing to do today to get onto that rocky ridge up there so let's have a look at some of the other flowers that are dotted around the hills. The tall white ones that our friend the Tropinota beetle is pollinating are Asphodels and the exquisite little purple and gold blooms are a subspecies of dwarf Algerian Iris that is endemic to Crete and Karpathos. Not everything is in flower yet but this rock lettuce (another Cretan endemic which will have spectacular 80cm blooms in April) is just ripe for picking a few salad leaves. Finally, these little clusters of golden sunshine are Gageas, one of seven species that we have here on Crete.

We also have the usual array of 'damned yellow composites' as botanists fondly call them and this one is being pollinated by a Mining Bee. When she's finished collecting the pollen she'll go and find a patch of sandy soil and start to excavate a mine. Down in the mine she'll construct a series of cells, lay in a pollen food store, lay a single egg on each heap of pollen and seal them up. There they will hatch, feed and grow and pupate to emerge about this time next year. Mining bees can be found all over the world except South America and Oceania (Australia, NZ, New Guinea area) particularly where the soil is sandy as it is around here.

Now we have a bit of serious rock scrambling to do. Ah, there's the pumping station where we were ferreting about last time. Nice to get a reference point as we've zigged and zagged a bit to get up here. This rock is what is known as a composite rock, that is, it is composed of many different types of rock (most of which appear to be unnecessarily sharp) and my eye is drawn to that green one sitting alone on the edge. Let's take a closer look. How strange, it is entirely coated with a crustose lichen. I wonder why that should be? I think I'll take a scraping to look at under the microscope later¹.

Here we are at the summit which looks to be an ideal place to sit and look at the orchid photographs that we've taken on the way up. The first two are Bee Orchids which mimic insects, very often bees, in order to entice them to come and mate and thus get covered in pollen. Sneaky little things but all's fair in love and war. They are also highly promiscuous and hybridize quite readily so it's rather difficult to identify them to species level with any accuracy. Still, it keeps the botanists amused almost indefinitely. We're on safer ground with the purple one which is a Butterfly Orchid. Not because it is pollinated by butterflies specifically (which would be far too logical) but because it resembles a pea flower. It's scientific name is Anacamptis papilionaceae which means 'like a pea flower with a bent back spur' but as papilio is Latin for butterfly it's finished up being named as a flower that looks like another flower which looks like a butterfly (if you squint at it in a certain light). Finally we have quite a few Robert's Giant Orchids around. It's a fairly robust orchid but by no means the biggest of the Cretan orchids and who Robert was seems to have been lost in the mists of time but there you go, that's orchids for you. Give me a Broomrape any day of the week.

We'll make our way back down now and see what else we can find on the way.

Huginn and Muninn are having a laugh at our expense again. Having neither heard nor seen a feather of them this morning they decide on a fly past with a third Raven in tow just as we're negotiating this tricky bit of rockery. Never mind, there's something even more interesting here: a spring -  and some of the water has collected right here, just as it emerges from the rock.

Here's a little puzzle for you to ponder while I set up the field microscope on this ledge. What photosynthesises like a plant, is made of glass and gets smaller as it grows? In the words of Dr Spock in Star Trek - “It's life Jim, but not as we know it.” These are diatoms. Microscopic life forms who's cell walls are made of silica and because of the unique way in which they divide and reproduce the offspring are smaller (and often a different shape) than the original. Curious little critters all round really but they are responsible for fixing more of the Earth's carbon than all of the world's rainforests put together. Even so, the trees and diatoms combined can't cope with the amount of carbon which we are still releasing into the atmosphere.

The Extra Bit

1 I hadn't noticed quite how precariously I was perched when collecting the lichen sample and you may be wondering how I managed to take the photo whilst both my hands were otherwise occupied. Truth to tell, I was accompanied on this hike by my friend and neighbour Nico and two of his teenage girls and it was great having some young, enthusiastic company. It was Nico who took the photograph.

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.

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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)

To St. John’s Ford

Algerian Iris, Iris unguicularis

Here we are below the Milonas waterfall and the cataract is still tumbling down through the rocks sounding like a symphony of swirling streams. A veritable jungle of giant cane and oleander surround us and up among the rocks small flowers like this Algerian Iris are taking advantage of every crack and crevice that holds a modicum of soil.  Not only is it a ridiculously pretty little flower but its rhizomes - the underground stems - contain some useful compounds (Kaempferol and 8-Methoxyeriodictyol if you're into phytochemistry), both of which are important in the fight against diabetes and a wide range of cancers^[1].

 

Tropinota beetle and Spilostethus Seed Bugs

It looks as though machetes will be needed to get through this next bit so I think we’ll take a detour up over the bank. With the temperatures now in the upper twenties Celsius and wall-to-wall sunshine the insects are anticipating next week’s spring equinox. The hairy Tropinota Beetles are all over the place and this one is gorging himself on a Cretan Cistus. Some insects, like the bees, flit from flower to flower but he’ll be there for an hour or more availing himself of every last bit of nourishment. Meanwhile the seed bugs are busy making more seed bugs. Unlike the Tiger Beetles who go for the direct mounting technique (see last week) Seed Bugs prefer the back-to-back method of mating. Not particularly romantic but equally effective.

Caddisfly larva, Trichoptera sp.

I can see a light at the end of the tunnel; if we just thrust our way through this bush… ah, we’re back to the stream. Let’s sit and peer into it for a bit and get our breath back. Pass me the net will you, I think there’s something going on down by that rock. Now why do you think that this little nymph is poking his head into that pile of sand? He’s not doing it voluntarily. That pile of sand is hiding a Caddisfly larva. There’s another one down there look. They spin a cocoon of sticky silk around themselves and cunningly cover it with surrounding materials; sand and grit in this case, then lay in wait and ambush unsuspecting prey. Our poor nymph is being eaten head first.

Diatoms

If you look at some of these rocks they’re covered with rather uninteresting looking brown slime. This is the next stage of the biofilm that we saw developing in A Recipe For Life. If you take the sampling kit – yes, that’s it: a screw top container and an old toothbrush. Just half fill the container with water, scrape the rock with the toothbrush and stir item 1 with item 2 – I’ll set up the field microscope and we’ll see what’s lurking within. Look at that, no less than nine species of diatoms; those minute life forms at the base of the food web. Fascinating aren’t they?

Spawn of the Green Toad, Bufotes viridis

Signs of civilisation, a vehicle track. If we were to follow it round to the left we’d find a waymarked path to the waterfall (but it wouldn’t have been as much fun as hacking through the undergrowth). To the right it goes down to Ferma Bay one way and up to Agios Ioannis the other. As I’ve said previously Agios Ioannis translates as St. John so I’ve always called this place St. John’s Ford but you won’t find it marked as such on any map. I see that the Green Toads have been busy. That clump of what looks like spotted snakes coiled around those reeds is toadspawn and the black dots are emerging tadpoles, there are a few swimming around look. You can tell that it’s toadspawn and not frogspawn because toads lay their spawn in long strings whereas frogs lay theirs in a jelly-like mass. Worldwide, amphibians are suffering deaths to the point of extinction in some species from ranaviruses^[2] but thankfully I’ve seen no signs of it locally. However, we’ll keep an eye on them on our travels.

 Talking of which, I think we’ll call that it for today and explore downstream next week. Spring will have well and truly sprung by then so it will be ‘eyes everywhere’ to catch all that’s going on.

The Extra Bit

Those diatoms we were looking at under the microscope are interesting enough when they’re still but when you watch them going about their daily business they are absolutely mesmerising. Here’s a short video for you:  https://youtu.be/DWctIwT3dFI 

^[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320512007175

^[2] http://www.savethefrogs.com/threats/chytrid/ranavirus/

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LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

See detailed pictures at http://www.inaturalist.org/login  (search - people-stevedaniels-observations)

The Nature of Crete  (Flipboard Magazine)

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)