Snakeless in Sisi

I had two reasons for wanting to visit Sisi on the north coast of Crete; firstly I'd never been there, despite having been living on the island for 14 years and secondly I'd been promised that I would find Dice Snakes lounging in the rock pools just waiting to have their photographs taken. What better way to start my series of Sunday Strolls with an enthusiastic band of budding amateur naturalists in tow? Sisi is only a small village but somehow Betty managed to get lost in it before we had even started but after a slight delay whilst we phoned her with directions we descended upon the rock pools. I should point out at this juncture that to avoid confusion and boredom by introducing loads of names into these stories (to say nothing of potential ostracism and/or libel actions) all of the ladies will be referred to as Betty and the gentlemen as Bert.

We found plenty of life in the rock pools; everything from Peacock's Tails (see Creature's of the Blue Lagoon if you'd like to know where you put them on your body and why), a couple of nice anemones including the Beadlet that was just coming out to feed, a few young gobies and an intense ecological battle. On one side of the battlefield there were a goodly number of small but beautifully formed, Marble Crabs, which are a native Mediterranean species and, lurking half under a rock, a much larger Sally Lightfoot which is probably the most invasive crab in the Mediterranean. First reported simultaneously off Ibiza and Italy in 1999 and off Crete in 2006 they're eating the poor Marble Crabs out of house and home. Where I live, in Ferma on the south east coast, it's not unusual to see half a dozen or more on one short snorkeling session. The main culprit? Increased shipping in the Mediterranean.

Growing around the rock pools was a fair amount of Rock Samphire, an edible plant that one can pickle in vinegar or brine or use the leaves raw on salads. I handed a few leaves round and I think that we all agreed that we'd rather not. Whereas the unrelated Marsh Samphire has a pleasant, salty taste that goes well with fish dishes, Rock Samphire has a distinctly medicinal tang and could only accompany dental mouthwash in my opinion. As we continued on our leisurely way around the inlet, where ducks and geese lazed on the shore or honked across the water impersonating fog horns' Betty came upon a bush of black berries. As she correctly observed, they looked almost, but not quite, like blackberries.

“Are they a close relative?” she asked.

“Not remotely”, I replied, “and what is more, the berries are poisonous.”

“You can't eat them then?” added Bert, just wanting to get everything absolutely clear in his mind (which is always a top idea when contemplating the consumption of anything in the wild).

“Er, no,” I confirmed.

Betty gave Bert a look which, if she'd turned it on the plant, would have had the berries withering on the stalk but left Bert totally unfazed.

The plant in question was Common Lantana, also known as the Bacon and Egg Plant as its tricolour flowers, radiating from centre, are yellow, white and raw bacon pink.

Of more use around the home were the Chaste Trees that grew alongside the road. Although used in herbal medicine as supposedly fine tuning our circadian rhythms, its efficacy has yet to be proven scientifically. Their common name derives from the fact that it was considered an anaphrodisiac in ancient times and, according to Pliny, it was used by Athenian women to cool the heat of lust in their menfolk. Personally I use it as pot pourri because, even to my anosmic snozzle, it smells pleasantly like lavender.

Insects were a bit thin on the ground this week but as we passed through the Bougainvillea bedecked arbour that leads back down to the sea I managed to capture an Egyptian Grasshopper or Locust who seemed quite happy to swap his resting place on the side of a tree for a similar position on my index finger whilst Betty and Bert admired him.

“What's the difference between a locust and a grasshopper?” asked Betty.

“Scientifically, none,” I informed her, “but in common parlance, locusts usually refer to the larger, strong flying grasshoppers such as this fellow, that occasionally form migratory swarms and do significant damage to crops on their way.”

Returning said Grasshopper/Locust to a nearby tree where he promptly continued his siesta, we made our way down to the spit that protects the little harbour in search of birdies.

We were instantly rewarded by a group of about fifteen large birds flying in a somewhat ragged formation out to sea which I at first took to be a phalanx of storks but on closer inspection of the photograph back in the lab, turned out to be a flight of herons, possibly a mixture of grey and purple herons but that could be a trick of the light. On the spit itself we were entertained by a couple of kingfishers chasing each other around the rocks. Autumn is the season when Kingfishers begin their courtship with the male chasing the female, calling after her almost incessantly. Later she will accept presents of fish but they will not merge their territories until the spring as each bird needs to eat 60% of its body weight each day.

So, no snakes, but plenty of other wildlife and we meandered back to one of the many seafront tavernas where we played at being kingfishers and attempted to consume 60% of our bodyweight in gyros and chips. If you'd like to join Betty, Bert and I then details of the next two Sunday strolls are below. Otherwise just click on the 'G+ Follow' icon in the top left panel to keep abreast of our adventures. Until next week, when I let Betty and Bert loose in a wildlife refuge, enjoy your autumn wherever you are.

Diary Dates

Stroll #2

Sunday 30^th September

11 am

Ag. Charalampos, Lassithi Plateau

A gentle walk around the lower slopes of the Plathini-Lagkada Wildlife Refuge where I hope that we shall see some Griffon Vultures (unless they see me coming and decamp like the Dice Snakes).

Stroll #3

Sunday 7^th October

11 am

Kroustas Forest

(Details next week)

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:

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.

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)

Dawn By The Riverside

Kingfisher

One of the good things about the longer nights in winter is that you don’t have to get up at an unearthly hour to be set up and waiting for the dawn chorus. This week I thought we’d take the car and park up by the little river which enters the sea just to the east of Ierapetra. Surprisingly a car makes a very good hide and as long as you’re in an area where birds are used to cars (almost everywhere) they ignore them.

We’ll go and have a look at the sea later where I expect we’ll find our old friend the kingfisher out on the rocks slyly eyeing the waters below for an unwary shoal of small fish.

Giant Cane

Meanwhile we’ll settle ourselves here under the bridge and wait for the light. Grab one of those canes will you and prop it up overhanging the water. It never hurts to put a convenient perch for dragonflies in a good spot for the camera. This is Giant Cane, by the way, and can grow to thirty feet or more. It’s in flower at the moment but those attractive, golden sprays are pretty much sterile in the seed department. You can see its main method of propagation just here in front of you; a stem falls into the water and new shoots appear at the nodes. It’s a pretty useful plant, being used for everything from construction to basket weaving and medicinally for the treatment of dropsy (oedema). Incidentally if you play the oboe then this is what you are sticking in your mouth each time you blow; Giant Cane is also the main source of reeds for woodwind instruments.

Grey Wagtail

The light is coming up and the sparrows and the hooded crows are starting to arrive and here comes one of my favourite winter visitors, the Grey Wagtail. He usually visits about this time of year and stays until March, bobbing up and down like a demented clockwork toy anywhere where there’s a bit of shallow water. He’s looking for insects of course which is his main food source but he’s not beyond taking the odd tadpole or two or even a small fish if one happens to chance by. I see he’s been joined by another bobber, a black redstart (which you will recall we met last week in Red Autumn). Although they both share this tail wagging habit they are not closely related; the Wagtails and Pipits are from the Motacillidae family whereas the Redstarts are from the Muscicapidae family along with the Flycatchers, Chats, Wheatears and Robins.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting a bit stiff now so let’s go and have a look at the surface of the water and see what insects we can find. If you pass me that pipette from the bag we’ll take a sample of water from the bottom and look at it under the microscope when we get back.

Termite alate

Now this is interesting and not instantly recognizable for what it is, which is a termite.  You don’t often think of them as winged insects but this is an alate; (which simply means winged form) and aletes are destined to become the Kings and Queens of the colony. The other insects that have alates are the ants but termites and ants are not related (even though termites are called white ants in many places).  Termites are in fact more closely related to cockroaches in the insect order Blattodea. The reason I find this discovery of ours particularly interesting is that, according to Fauna Europea, termites are absent from Crete which is not surprising as they’re  more associated with tropical and subtropical regions. As I’ve said before (see Phenomenal Phenology) south east Crete is getting hotter. More evidence of climate change perhaps?

Mediterranean Coastal Snail

While we’re out of the car let’s have a look along the bank and see what else is about. Here’s a gorgeous little fellow having his breakfast. There are two snails locally which look very similar; the Chocolate-banded Snail (Eobania vermiculata) and the Mediterranean Coastal Snail (Theba pisana). They both have these chocolate brown stripes at the base whereas the rest of the shell can be quite variable. The main clue is in the size. This one is a Mediterranean Coastal Snail which has a width of around 15mm in this area whereas the Chocolate-banded Snail is around twice as big at 22-32mm. Sometimes the Coastal gives you an extra clue by having a blue-grey whorl at the apex which the Chocolate –banded deems a bit too flash and will never be seen wearing.

We’ve been out for about three hours now so I think it’s time to go back and make a whacking great kedgeree for breakfast and then we’ll put that water sample under the microscope and see who’s living at the bottom of our river. I think I’ve got some seaweed in the fridge that will add a bit of oomph to the kedgeree. You haven’t tried kedgeree with seaweed before? You haven’t lived.

Ostracod or Seed Shrimp

That’s better, you can’t do microscopy on an empty stomach. Right, where did you put that pipette? Just mount a drop up on the slide so…  adjust the focus… and hello, a freshwater mussel I think. [But I think wrong. I am reliably informed that it is an Ostracod or Seed Shrimp. Having found the specimen in freshwater it most likely belongs to the order Podacopida]
Mussels are molluscs of course, like the snail we saw earlier, but there are several Classes of mollusc. Mussels are Bivalves because they have two valves (or shells as we commonly call them – a somewhat confusing use of the word valve) whereas the Mediterranean Coastal Snail is a Gastropod which means stomach foot. Marine gastropods tend to rasp seaweeds from rocks and terrestrial gastropods go for more conventional chewing like you and me. Seed Shrimps, on the other hand, are gulpers. Something swims by, the Seed Shrimp gets all excited, the valves open and in goes the prey. There he goes look, just press the Video Link and you can see it on your screen (he does this twice after 10 seconds and 45 seconds). Aren’t microscopes wonderful? That chap can’t be any more than a third of a millimetre long.

I don’t think we can top that this week so we’ll call it a day. Just a quick hello to everyone in Scandinavia – nice to have you back. (They’ve been enjoying the 24 hour daylight throughout the summer and now that the dark days are here they’re coming back to the blog – you see I know where you all live). Tell me, how do bats get on in Scandinavia? I’ve never thought about this before. Do they aestivate during the summer and then go hyperactive in the winter?

Now if only I could get rid of this ear-worm. Ever since we started out I’ve had the song “Down by the Riverside” going over and over in my brain with ‘Down’ replaced by ‘Dawn’ Hence the blog title. All the best and happy hunting until next week.

·         * * * STOP PRESS * * *

·         From: Pest Control Technology magazine Mon 17^th November 2014

·         Termites have been the No. 1 structural pest in the United States for longer than most can remember, yet at a recent one-day conference organized by PestBusiness.com and held in Paris, France, it was made clear to the delegates that this is now a real threat facing Europe. Seventy-five percent of the market is in France, but Spain and Italy are fast developing and there are soon likely to be significant additional markets in countries such as Greece and Turkey.

http://www.pctonline.com/Paris-termites-conference.aspx

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Special thanks this week to all at the EntomologyGroup on Facebook with whom I had a long conversation about termites (including an offer to have some cooked for me in Uganda which I was sorely tempted to take up).
And also to invertzoo for identifying the "mussel" as an Ostracod or Seed Shrimp.

LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

AquaworldAquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)