Taking It Easy

What a lovely day for wandering along the beach and taking it easy after our exertions down the valley. I see that we have another of those Bee flies that we were discussing a few weeks back (see The Sweet Smell of Rain) investigating the sand. Quite an absorbing pastime and there are hobbyists who collect sand, studying its composition from places around the world. The bit that the bee fly is studying for instance contains dark grains, pure white grains and at least fifty shades of grey in between. The colours are determined by the mineral content and the shape depends upon whether it has been washed down from the hills or transported by wind and waves. Ours is angular suggesting that it has come down the valley like us and the colouration is typical of quartz and chert with that odd orange bit by his abdomen probably coming from one of the iron bearing rocks that we observed in How To Get Blood Out Of A Stone.

Let's walk along the back of the beach and see what else we can find. Those bunches of strap like leaves will throw up fragrant blooms of white Sea Daffodils in the summer but we have one common beach plant blossoming here and now and that's Sea Rocket. The seed pods have a very high concentration of erucic acid which is an omega 9 fatty acid and has a bit of a story behind it. You may be familiar with great yellow fields of rape, from which we get rapeseed oil. Rape and sea rocket are closely related and both contain high levels of this acid. We cultivate rapeseed oil for biofuel, animal feed and edible oil but the high levels of erucic acid became a cause of concern after laboratory tests in the 1970s showed that if you stuffed rats full of the stuff then it had a toxic effect on the heart. To be honest, if you pig out exclusively on anything it will probably do you harm – even water can poison you in high enough doses. Enter two bright sparks from the University of Manitoba in Canada who bred rapeseed low in erucic acid and called it Canola oil. Nowadays we just genetically modify the plant of course and canola is widely marketed as the healthy cooking oil. I'll let you make your own mind up on that one.

Here's a pretty little lady, she's a Long tailed Blue. Not as showy as the male who has a lot more blue on his upper wings but it pays not to be too conspicuous when you're sitting there egg laying. This maybe what she has in mind now. Her caterpillars feed on a wide range of leguminous plants in the Fabaceae family such as this Cretan Ebony which is just coming into flower. Shall we take a wander down to the sea and clamber along those interesting looking rocks over there?

That seems like a nice place to stop and watch the marine world go by. Not much in the way of fish today... the odd shore crab scuttling about... but there's some seaweed down there which may be harbouring some microscopic life. Let's have a look. Ah, our old friends the diatoms, the very basis of the food web. These are marine diatoms and different to those that we found under the dripping stalactite in A Recipe For Life.

Those wedge shaped ones often cluster together, narrow ends facing inwards, so that they make a complete circle like a flower head. I expect that we disturbed them when we rudely hauled them out of the sea and plonked them on a microscope slide. I think we'll rinse the slide and put them back. You know, it's almost warm enough to join them in there. Maybe in a couple of weeks. When the sea's had a chance to warm up a bit.

The Extra Bit

If you'd like to become an arenophile and collect sand as a hobby there's a society just for you: http://sandcollectors.org/become-a-collector/

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LINKS:

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

See detailed pictures on Flickr

Read more about the flora and flora of the island in 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)

Rosemary’s Restaurant

Long-tailed Blue on Rosemary

Last week we finished our Saunter Round the Saltpans at an eatery. This week I propose that we start at one, to whit this Rosemary bush at the side of the road here.  Being a predominantly winter flowering plant (September – April locally) it is very popular with many insects starting to appear after the long hot summer. Today I see we have a few hoverflies, a whole contingent of honey bees and a good half dozen Long-tailed Blue butterflies flitting hither and thither, sampling the fare with all the dedication of a gathering of gourmands. Rosemary has long been popular in our own cuisine of course, particularly in association with lamb dishes, and as it has a traditional reputation for improving memory there is no excuse for forgetting to add it to the pot. 

Southern Green Shieldbug (5th instar)

As you can see there is a gully running beneath the road (still dry at the moment as the winter rains still haven’t started in earnest) but I see that we have a clump of Four o’clock flowers in that damp hollow below us which are also showing signs of being patronised by the insect world including quite a number of these young fellows. Maybe it’s the teenage hangout. These are Southern Green Shieldbugs and betwixt egg and their rather conservative green adult livery they change their appearance five times. They emerge in nursery clothing of reddish brown with discrete white markings; as toddlers they change into black, retaining the white markings but adding a splash of red; black remains the colour of the day for the youngsters but emboldened with more white and also yellow markings; and as they pass into their early teens as it were (please forgive the blatant anthropomorphisation) a hood and mantle of lime green makes its appearance. The final instar, as these stages are called, contains the reds, blacks and whites (now fading to cream) of youth on a background of adult green. 

Termites

It is most definitely a morning for insects. Do you notice how we are being accompanied by a squadron of red dragonflies and with every step we are disturbing clouds of grasshoppers? The harvester ants are busy harvesting as usual, taking seeds down into the nest and I would have thought to have seen more small, perching birds (passerines as they are collectively called) hopping around in the olive trees. It is early afternoon however so maybe they’ve settled for a siesta after their morning feed although I fear that it is another sign of their decline in recent years. No beetles as yet and come to think of it I’ve hardly seen a beetle all autumn. Maybe there are some under this pile of rotting wood. Oh dear, this may not be good news. You may recall that we found a dead termite alate last month floating in the water as we spent Dawn by The Riverside? Well these termites are very much alive. Although they have a bad reputation it is only a minority, the drywood termites, that cause the most damage to human built structures.  As these seem perfectly happy meandering around this damp and decaying wood I assume they are dampwood termites which will only hasten the demise of your garden shed if it is rotting anyway. 

 

Prickly Pear

Ah, here we are at the cliffs and I see that the Prickly Pear is starting to bear fruit. These are not a native plant, having been introduced from Mexico, but they are pretty widespread down here on the south east coast.  The fruit is very sweet and juicy and best eaten after they’ve been in the fridge for a couple of hours but you have to take care when harvesting them. The fruit is covered in tiny, detachable, hair-like spines that are extremely irritating to the skin. You may recall the advice given by Baloo in the song The Bare Necessities  from The Jungle Book: “Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw. When you pick a pear try to use the claw.” So, has anyone got any thick gloves with them? Apart from me that is?

Cormorant

After that healthy bit of foraging I see that someone has erected a new bench overlooking the sea. Oh look, there goes a cormorant, skimming characteristically low over the water. I generally see these magnificent birds down here between November and March as they fly down from their breeding grounds which can be as far away as Scandinavia. You may have noticed that white patch on the thigh.  According to my Collins Field Guide this is only present in the breeding season. Either this individual is still hopeful or he hasn’t read the right literature.

Until next week – happy hunting.

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LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)