Hanging on to Summer

 

Quite a lot of people suffer from SAD, Seasonal Affected Disorder. It's 8.30 in the morning as I write, it's tipping it down outside, it barely got light an hour ago, but there's something warming and comforting about viewing the outside world from my study window, all snug inside (even if the current energy crisis makes it injudicious to put the heating on!). Astronomically speaking, it is still Summer, at least until tomorrow (Friday 23^rd September). The equinox is a late one this year. The date varies because the calendar year is 365 days but the Earth actually takes 365 and a quarter days to travel around the Sun. But although the clocks go back at the end of next week, let us embrace the Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness as Keats put it, get out and about when we can and snuggle down when we can't.

Autumn is a great time for foraging. The brambles are laden with blackberries, hazelnuts are ripening nicely and the woods are full of delicious fungi. For those of you with gardens, it's harvest time, and one of my favourite places at this time of year is the kitchen. Stuffed marrow is on the menu tonight. Recipe in Steve's Wild Kitchen plus Stuffed Halloween Pumpkins.

Autumn is also a lovely time of year for bird watching. Taking Mattie for a walk, down on Parton beach earlier in the week, turned up a couple of Gull species, a Little Egret, a Redshank and a Curlew, plus a Northern Wheatear. This bird holds the record for the longest migration of any songbird at 9,000 miles each way from Alaska to sub-Saharan Africa and back.

Insects are still about too. In the past week I've seen grasshoppers, leafhoppers, beetles and butterflies and quite a number of the large, furry Fox Moth caterpillars. They are out and about looking for leaf litter in which to hibernate over winter. They will emerge in the Spring as fairly large moths, reddish brown in the case of the male and greyish brown in the female. Both sexes have two creamy lines across their wings.

Tips From Yesteryear

I try to live life simply, here at The Old Corn Mill, and often think back to how my grandparents used to do things (and I'm old enough to be a grandparent myself, so we're going back a bit). They didn't live in the throwaway age and nothing was ever wasted. Potatoes that had sprouted too much for the pot were returned to the earth where one potato produced a handful. The roots cut off spring onions were placed in a pot on the kitchen windowsill to produce another spring onion. It wasn't called recycling then, it was just what people did.

Talking of yesteryear, I'm pleased to say that my little on-line antiques shop, that I started at the beginning of the year, is doing rather well. This is in no small part due to the series of blogs I've been writing called 'Steve's History of Things', which gives some fascinating insights into the history of everyday objects. Here's a list of the series so far, and feel free to browse around the shop: Steve's Vintage Collectables

Steve's History of Things 1 Introduction		Steve's History of Things 2 5 Good Reasons to Buy EPNS
Steve's History of Things 3 Fielding's Musical Tankards		Steve's Hstory of Things 4 Jasperware
Steve's History of Things 5 Blood Pressure Monitors		Steve's History of Things 6 Chodov Porcelain
Steve's History of Things 7 The Pottery Detective			Next week: Royal memorabilia

Happy Equinox,

Steve

Beetles and Butterflies; spiders and scorpions; woodlice and worms. How do you tell them all apart? To say nothing of crane flies, dragonflies, bee flies and yet more butterflies. Are they all flies? If not, why call them so? If you're fascinated but confused by the beautiful world of the very small, then this is the book for you. 82 pages of information on all aspects of the world of minibeasts, with over 100 photographs and illustrations, this book will help you track down and identify any arthropod, in its adult or juvenile state, anywhere in the world. See all of my books at author.to/SteveDaniels

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Welcome to the Wildlife Hotel

This is it, the Wildlife Hotel. It wasn't designed as such but is an abandoned project that has been this way since before I arrived in 2004. Gradually the native plants have taken over the gardens and the wildlife has moved in. Before we nose around though I'd just like to draw your attention to these poppies down here. To me, poppies used to be those red things that you wore on Remembrance Day or the mauve things in the middle east that provided the world, for better or for worse, with opium. I was quite surprised to learn that there were nearly eight hundred species dotted around the world with nine here on Crete alone including the familiar red and mauve ones. This particular one is widespread but not very common on the island and is called the Red horned-poppy. Presumably on account of that massive, rampant seed pod.

The other flower that is prevalent in this region is the endemic Cretan ebony. This is acting like a magnet to the honey bees and I see that some enterprising individual has placed a couple of hives on the approach way. Don't worry, they won't bother you. You may think that you look and smell pretty but you can't hold a candle to the Cretan ebony. Just look at the air traffic control that's going on down there at the hive – the bees take off and fly out bottom right and approach and land from the top left.

The air may be a-buzz with bees but there's not much in the way of bird life up here today. I can hear Blackbird, Sardinian Warbler, Chaffinch and Sparrow but ten years ago I used to see Buntings, Flycatchers and Linnets up here quite regularly. A sad illustration of the decline in European songbirds unfortunately. Populations of the Spotted Flycatcher that I photographed on the balcony back in 2006, for instance, have dropped by a staggering 89% in recent decades.

Let's rest in the sun and admire the view for a while. There's some nice grass to sit on or a flat rock if you'd prefer. As you can see, I've bagged the one surviving sun lounger. Looks like I'm going to have to share it though. This curious little insect is one of the hoppers. There are four main groups: plant, leaf, frog and tree hoppers. I think that this one is a leafhopper but they're all very similar until you study them in detail. They all belong to the same order, the hemiptera or true bugs, and are most closely related to the cicadas which keep us entertained throughout the summer. Unlike the cicadas however they do not announce themselves to the world in the same deafening manner.

The little hoppers are lovely but I like an insect that you can pick up and make friends with; like this magnificent grasshopper. Isn't he a beauty? I've just picked him up from among those wild oats down there and he's taking being handled gently with equanimity. That's right, you sit up there on my shoulder – pirates have parrots, why shouldn't I have a grasshopper?

That just about wraps it up for this week so it just leaves my new friend and I to lead you back to where we started and next week we'll investigate the top track above the village.

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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)

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)