The Purple Ponds of Lithines

The purple ponds are teeming with microscopic life. 

We'll make our way back to the main Sitia-Makry Gialos road to Lithines where there are a few interesting ponds to the north west of the village that are worthy of investigation not least of all for their intriguing colour at this time of year. We are still awaiting significant rainfall and the ponds are very shallow at the moment but packed full of nutrients and it is these that are responsible for their unusual colour. If you check them out under the microscope they are absolutely teeming with microscopic life with nematodes, desmids and the like flitting about at tremendous speeds all over the place. But before we get down to them lets see what we can find on the way.

The first signs of the upcoming change of season are here by the track with these Wood Sorrels or Bermuda Buttercups which will soon be adorning every roadside and olive grove. You can make a nice warming winter soup with these; just bring a pot of chicken or vegetable broth up to the boil, chuck in a handful of cooked rice and a handful of wood sorrel leaves, simmer for about eight minutes. Finally stir in a dollop of cream, salt and pepper to taste and serve with a couple of the flowers floating on the top. (Obligatory word of caution: Wood sorrel contains oxalic acid so if you suffer from rheumatism, arthritis, gout, kidney stones or hyperacidity then it may aggravate the complaint but for the rest of us the odd bowl or two is fine). You can also add flowers or leaves to salads for a sharp, lemony bite if you wish as well. As with all wild plants, wash them well, remove any bugs such as this Shield Bug nymph and pick away from roadsides or other contaminated areas.

There are the ponds down there which we have to find our way down to somehow but first a Small Copper has just landed nearby. They like to lay their eggs on Sorrel which is their caterpillar's food plant and you could be forgiven for thinking that this is rather handy as we have some wood sorrel nearby but not so. This is the old confusion of common names. The Wood Sorrel is Oxalis pes-carpe in the family Oxalidaceae; Sorrels (without the wood) are plants of the Rumex genus in the Polygonaceae family. The ambiguity arises because they are all acidic tasting and the word Sorrel reflects this being derived from the old French 'sorele' meaning sour.

Here we are, down at the ponds without too much difficulty and there doesn't seem to be too much activity on the surface but just take a look at this rainwater ditch nearby where the water is a little more free draining. The dragonflies are having a high old time, there must be six pairs here at least, flying along in tandem with the males clasping the females' necks with their special pincers. These little Darters stay together after copulation and then the female gently dips her abdomen into the water and lays an egg which, if we sit and watch them for a few moments we can witness. There she goes, and another, and another. These will hatch out into extremely predatory nymphs and providing that the ditch doesn't dry up they can spend up to three years in this stage before emerging as adults.

And finally the ponds themselves and what an unusual, attractive colour they are at this time of day. Not entirely devoid of life on the surface, I can see one small, white insect skating along on the surface but what precisely it is I cannot tell. No, I am not going to wade in and take a closer look. I have a strong suspicion that beneath this shallow water there lurks a good few inches or more of evil smelling sludge with which I have no desire to get better acquainted thank you. Well, that just about wraps it up for Autumn. Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice and if you'd care to join me in raising a glass to the shortest day of the year the the time of the solstice, when the Earth is at its furthest point from the sun, is 16.48 Universal Time or almost ten to five Greenwich Mean Time as us oldies prefer to call it. That's a most convivial time for a libation out here in Crete being about ten to seven in the evening. So, wherever you are and whatever you're celebrating, have a good one and we'll meet up again on January 3^rd 2018. Cheers!

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)

Gallivanting in the Grasslands

To read in other languages use: Google Translate

Grab the sweep nets and we’ll take advantage of this rare sunny afternoon and go somewhere we haven’t been yet. The weather has thrown everything at us this week: hail, sleet, storm force winds and we’ve had the lowest January temperatures for ten years or more. There is even a tattering of snow on the Thriptis Mountains – something we don’t usually see until February which is when we generally have our two weeks of wintery weather down here in the south east of the island.

This is a lovely area of grassland just a kilometre or so up the hill and we’re particularly looking for grasshoppers today but I’m sure we’ll find many other interesting things besides so, select your patch of grassland and get sweeping.

Slant-faced Grasshopper

Many grasshoppers, as their name suggests, spend their lives hopping through grass in great, prodigious leaps often augmenting this with short, whirring flights. This makes them relatively easy to catch with a net; you just have to disturb one, watch where he lands and which direction he’s facing then make a low sweep towards his head. Invariably he’ll jump straight into your net. By their very nature it’s difficult to get the close-up shots you need for identification while they’re hopping about like Tiggers on springs so I always carry a small plastic box with me to temporarily contain them while I photograph them from a variety of angles. When you let them go they often sit for a moment to get their bearings so you can photograph them in their natural habitat. That’s a nice one you have there, one of the Slant-faced grasshoppers. From the markings on the pronotum (between the head and the main body) I should say either Chorthippus biroi or Chorthippus bornhalmi.

Bermuda Buttercup and Broomrape

While we’re sitting here on these sun warmed rocks admiring our captures have you noticed that we are surrounded by a sea of green leaves with purple blotches? As the leaves are grouped in threes you may be forgiven for thinking that it is a type of clover but it is in fact the leaves of what is commonly known as the Bermuda Buttercup. A strange name as it is neither from Bermuda (it is originally from South Africa) nor a Buttercup (it is a type of Wood Sorrel). Very soon this area will be covered with its bright yellow flowers attracting insects by the score. And dotted between them will be some different, leafless plants with purple and white flowers. These are Broomrapes and the reason they are leafless is that they don’t photosynthesise like most plants but are parasites on the Wood Sorrell. They drain nutrients from their root systems proving that even in the plant world there is more than one way of making a living.

Gill Mushroom

And if we probe down here between the stems I think I see… yes I do… the first mushroom of the season. Small but beautifully formed it’s one of the gill mushrooms. Edible? Quite possibly, many of them are but I wouldn’t want to risk it without checking it out thoroughly. We’ll have to go fungus foraging sometime in the next few weeks and do a bit of identification work on the fungi we find. Meanwhile it is starting to cloud over as evening begins to draw in and that mushroom has whetted my appetite so we’ll wander back down the hill, have a nice hot cup of tea and some crumpets then have a look at some of our home based projects.

Mould growing on Moss

Now that we’re all suitably refreshed you may recall that last week we constructed a desk top mossary and found a couple of insect eggs amongst our moss samples. Well the moss is thriving even though the eggs haven’t hatched yet but we do have a development. In one corner a few silvery threads of mould have appeared. Moulds are part of the Fungi kingdom of course, the same as the mushroom, and incidentally, led to the development of antibiotics. We’ll let it mature a bit and then have a look at it under the microscope because they’re quite fascinating forms of life and really quite pretty when you get to know them.

"Alice"

You may have noticed that just outside the lab we passed a bird table on the way in. we used to get warblers, tits and all sorts coming to the table but the most I’ve seen this winter is four sparrows. A sad reflection on the state of the small bird populations in Europe but with such limited numbers it gives us the chance to study them as individuals rather than just counting their numbers. I was listening to a radio programme the other day about animal personality and was delighted to hear that someone had actually detected personality traits in Sea Anemones. So I thought that this year we’d take a closer look at the personalities of some of the animals that we see every day starting with Alice and Beatrice. The dumpy little lady on the right is Alice and she is first to the table in the mornings. She’ll sit down to a full breakfast with scarcely a glance up. Beatrice on the other hand is far more wary, only coming down to the table when she is sure that it’s safe, grabbing a few mouthfuls and flying off again, only to return a few minutes later to repeat the process.

"Beatrice"

So who has the greatest chance of surviving to pass on her genes? Is it slow and steady Alice who ensures she gets her fill but could fall prey to any passing cat or sparrowhawk - or fast and flighty Beatrice who may find that Alice has had all the food? It will all depend upon the balance between food availability and predator activity. In all walks of life there are times when fortune favours the bold and times when discretion is the better part of valour which makes the study of individual animals (including the human animal) such a rewarding pastime. 

Until next week – happy hunting.

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LINKS:

To read in other languages use: Google Translate

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)