Aira Force

 

Long ago, in days of yore

Emma fell for Sir Eglamore

Not only fell

But fell right in

And what is more

She couldn't swim

Steve Daniels 2021

Okay, so Wordsworth may have penned a better poem about the tragic love of Aira Force in his The Somnabulist of 1833, but mine's shorter and you get the gist.

This is the famous Aira Force, the upper part of which we'll be exploring today, along with our Intrepid Local Guide and Jack The Navigator Hound. Force is a northern English word for a waterfall and comes from the Old Norse 'fors'. Aira is also Scandinavian in origin, it is the feminine form of Airi, the messenger or herald. I'm not sure what the message is, but it's a very loud one. No words can describe the sheer power of the water as it cascades down the mountainside, through echoing rock chasms, at this time of year.

Leaving Emma and Aira aside for one moment, there are a couple of other girls up here, Holly and Hazel, that are showing signs of life. There's Holly on the far bank, producing a wonderful crop of scarlet berries, whilst over here, Hazel is coming into flower. In last week's Frozen! We saw that the male catkins of the hazel tree had arrived to greet the coming Spring, and now the tiny red female flowers have come out to join them. We'll have to wait until September or October though, to enjoy the fruits of their union.

Holly and Hazel are both flowering, vascular plants. That is, they reproduce via seeds (nuts in the case of Hazel and berries in the case of Holly) and they conduct water around their tissues via substances called xylem (which transports water from the soil to the stems and leaves) and phloem (which transports the sugars manufactured during photosynthesis to wherever the plant happens to need them at the time). Ferns, like this Common Polypody, which you can see growing on the trees, are non-flowering, vascular plants. They also conduct water around their tissues but reproduce using spores, much like mushrooms do. As you can see, there is also plenty of moss about (which we also looked at in last week's Frozen!). Moss is a non-flowering, non-vascular plant. It simply soaks up water but has no means of actively transporting it.

Going further back along the evolutionary scale, as it were, we come to the unicellualar algae which, among other things, are responsible for making rocks slippery (otherwise they'd just be wet). Diatoms, in particular, (which we met earlier this month when we went Half Way To Sunderland) produce slime to facilitate locomotion when they want to move, and to stick themselves to things when they don't. Very useful stuff, slime, unless you're trying to walk over slippery rocks, of course. It is the diatoms and other unicellular organisms that provide the very basis of the food web which makes all the rest of life on Earth possible. Under the microscope, watching these tiny bundles of life, ponderously grazing like sheep or whizzing around like flies, is truly mesmerising.

I hate to tell Jack, but if he's waiting for the food web to evolve into something more meaningful, he's going to be there an awful long time.

Aira Force finishes its hectic descent at Ullswater, which I'm sure we'll explore at a later date. Meanwhile, it's a beautiful location to sit and have lunch. There's a Tree-creeper making his way up that tree, just there, using his legs and tail in a sort of tripod arrangemnet for extra stability. Notice the curved beak for getting in behind the rough bark of the tree. If I just prise a bit of bark off here, I can show you what he's looking for – pupating insect larvae.

Someone asked me recently, in the Naturalists Facebook group that accompanies this blog, “How can I become a naturalist?”. The answer I gave was simple: “Never grow up. Continue to see nature through the eyes of a child and always ask: What's that? What's it doing? Why is it doing it? Everything else will follow.”

That's all for this week but if you visit my webpage at Steve's Nature Plus I've made a video of Aira Force so that you can see it in all its glory.

Steve

Steve's Books

The Quick Guide to Creepy-Crawlies All you need to know to identify any type of insect, spider, worm or snail very simply and find out more about it. Yvonne: This was a gift for a family so that the children can understand what they see on days out. The second was for me. Logical and easy to use. If you know anyone who likes nature you can be confident that gifting this book will give years of pleasure.
The Eggs of Saramova A science fiction novella for those who don't like science fiction. A fast-paced thriller that is, literally, out of this world (and it starts right here in Crete). Too new for reviews yet!	£7.50 Paperback edition
Not Just For Twisted Women by Steve Daniels  A light-hearted look at life through the eyes of the fairer sex. Janet: If you are short on time but enjoy reading and are maybe not into long extended novels then Not Just For... Twisted Women provides readers with concise stories that stand alone and most certainly entertain with their ultimate twists. Loved it. Helen: A very good read! Well written and entertaining! Margaret: Each quick tale gives a glimpse into a character's life and has an often humorous twist at the end. I would love to read more. Yvonne: These days many people find it hard to find the time to read a novel, so this book of short stories is ideal to dip into. It is also makes a good gift.	£4.99 Paperback Edition

See sample pages of all my books and latest blogs, and keep abreast of latest publications here: http://author.to/SteveDaniels

Crete Nature Catch-up
Series 1 - Welcome to Lasithi	Series 2 - The Rhythm Of Life	Series 3 - A Journey Begins
Series 4 - The Milonas Valley	Series 5 - This Is Ferma	Series 6 - Upland Villages
Series 7 - The Forty saints	Series 8 - Sunday Strolls	Series 9 -Stormy Weather

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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)

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)