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)

Descent Into The Milonas Valley

Now that we’ve made it all the way up here we’ve got to get all the way back again but this time we’ll come down the Milonas (or Miller’s) Valley. So first we must descend that evil looking slope .

Autumn Crocus, Colchicum pusillum

A quick look at the flowers before we start our descent, most of which we met on the way up, such as the little yellow Sternbergia but there are also these delicate little Autumn Crocuses. Pretty little things that those of you with long memories may remember we met once before when we visited The Waterfall of Milonas a couple of years back and I told you the story of a famous murderer. On the plus side though, it was the original source of the drug colchicine which has a number of uses including treatment of Familial Mediterranean Fever. This is a rather nasty human disease caused by a genetic mutation specific to people of Eastern Mediterranean origin.  Like nettles and dock leaves the problem and solution are to be found in the same place. 

Raven, Corvus corax

I see that our friends the ravens are keeping an eye on us from above. One of these days I’ll get a decent photograph but it’s difficult to hold the camera steady whilst spinning on a scree slope as you may have noticed. You may be forgiven for thinking that a raven is a raven is a raven but apparently not so. According to an analysis of  DNA taken from 72 birds across the northern hemisphere they are all the same apart from those in California which are genetically different.^[1]  (I can’t help feeling that this may explain a lot about Californians in general). Incidentally I’ve seen a lot more ravens about this year and at lower altitudes. I wonder why?

Seed Bug, Lygaeus pandurus

Watch your step coming down here, it really is quite treacherous underfoot. I usually find that using the plants as stepping stones rather than trying to step between them gives you a better purchase. I see we have a couple of seed bugs down here, one adult and one nymph. Both the same species as far as I can see; Pistachio Red Bugs. A bit of a misnomer really as they’ll sup sap from a multitude of plants. They’re very hardy little bugs, as happy up in the mountains as they are down on the coast, so you can’t help admiring them.  Talking of the coast, you can just about see it from here (the sea at any rate). 

Darkling Beetle, Raiboscelis coelestinus

We’re aiming for that track below us but first, a fallen pine tree to investigate. Let’s sit down here a while and poke about among the decaying branches and see who’s home. What have you got there? A smashing little Darkling Beetle, no bigger than my thumbnail.  These are cosmopolitan beetles that you can find from the driest deserts to the wettest rainforests and are omnivores, like ourselves. If you want to live all over the world then it pays not to be too fussy. If you look closely you can see that this one has a blueish sheen and that, along with the pattern of dimples on his back helps us to identify him. He goes under the name of Raiboscelis coelestinus if you’re taking notes.

And here we are back on the track that leads to the church. Next week we’ll see what’s lurking in that gully but first – let’s rock. A couple of weeks ago we were looking at minerals and now I’d like to draw your attention to some of the rocks that are lying around, of which I’ve collected a few on the way down. So what’s the difference between a rock and a mineral? To illustrate: the church is sat upon a limestone outcrop. Limestone is a rock which consists primarily of two minerals: calcite and aragonite. Both of these minerals contain the same elements: calcium, carbon and oxygen but they’re put together in a different way. Simply, elements make minerals make rocks. We too are a collection of elements put together in different ways which we get, via plants and other animals, from rocks. So on our way down the Milonas valley we’ll have a little look at the chemistry of life as we go and see how we’re all bound together with the planet on which we live.

The Extra Bit

Black Redstart, Phoenicurus ochruros

The first Black Redstarts of the autumn have arrived on the south east coast. I spotted this female on the way up and there was a male on my gate post as I left home this morning. These birds usually appear in November and overwinter here. They form a part of our ongoing phenological study (see Phenomenal Phenology).

^[1] California Ravens are a Breed Apart

LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

See detailed pictures at http://www.inaturalist.org/login  (search - people-stevedaniels-observations)

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)

The Only Way Is Up

Here we are back at the Church of the Holy Cross, a couple of thousand feet up in the Thripti mountains. 

Oriental Hornet, Vespa orientalis

Just before we begin our final ascent I’d like to bring your attention back to these hornets that are still busy buzzing around the ivy, as they are rather special. They are Oriental Hornets and you generally find them anywhere from Southwest Asia to North Africa and also here in the southernmost parts of Europe. You see those two yellow bands around the abdomen? When the sun hits them they react differently to the brown parts and a small amount of electricity is generated. They are, in fact, solar panels. Not content with being solar powered they are also astronauts. They were on board the 1992 Space Shuttle Endeavour mission but unfortunately nearly eighty percent of them died when their water supply failed. Probably make a good space thriller if we could persuade Matt Damon into a hornet suit. Now that’s what I call an interesting insect.

So, onwards and upwards, an intriguing looking route I think you’ll agree. Of course you can get up there, when in doubt follow the goat droppings.

We’re still among the prickly plants and I have to admit, the going is as tough as it looked from down there so we’ll pause for a moment to take a look at the sides of this gully that we’re climbing up. Look at the different colours that are streaming down the bank where the minerals have been leached out of the rocks. Reds, greens, yellows, purples, all telling a different story. Rocks are collections of minerals and each mineral has its own specific chemical composition. Certain plants require either more or less of certain chemicals and this is where botany and geology combine; as Farmer Fallowfield used to say: “the answer lies in the soil” (and if you can remember where that came from and who played him you’re getting on a bit!). The types of plants determine the types of invertebrates that can be found here so these pretty colours are literally the bedrock of our ecosystem.

Door Snails, Albinaria teres

As you can see the larger rocks are festooned with Door Snails. They’re called that because inside their shells they have a sliding door for extra protection against certain beetle larvae which are their nemesis. At the moment they are hanging around waiting for the autumn rains which shouldn’t be long in coming. Usually, although they congregate like this, each snail likes to have its own space but I see that we have three snuggled up together here which is a bit unusual. You see that little half shell up there? That’s a youngster. The snails are active in the wet season and aestivate through the dry summers and it takes two or three wet seasons for them to develop the top lip that identifies them as adults. They live here on the limestone rocks happily feeding on algae and lichen.

I spy a small cave up above that must surely be worth a detour. What’s a bit of extra rock scrambling between friends?  You’re giving me that look again. If it’s any consolation I think we must be nearly half way to the summit –probably –maybe. Ah, now, what do we have here? A shallow cave, a partly dismembered sheep’s carcass and a bird feather. What do you make of that? A large bird obviously and the way the spine of the feather bends first one way and then the other suggests one of the smaller primary flight feathers (and at 180cms that is one very large bird). The carcass leads us to think in terms of either a bird of prey or a carrion feeder. Let’s have a closer look at the feather. Creamy white with a faint brown tinge and no barring. That narrows it down a bit. We’ll have to get it confirmed but I think that this feather belonged to an Egyptian Vulture, Neophron percnopterus. If so, we’re onto something very interesting. Meanwhile bag it up and let’s have a look and see what else we can find.

Cretan Dittany, Origanum dictamnus

This is turning out to be a very amusing little cave, look what I’ve found growing in these crevices up here. If you’ve seen this before it was most likely in a shop specialising in Cretan products. Its Origanum dictamnus, or Cretan Dittany the famous herbal mountain tea. It’s meant to be an aphrodisiac of course and young men known as the erondades, or love seekers, went to dangerous lengths (and heights) to collect it. The sheer fact that they performed such heroic feats probably boosted them in the eyes of the local girls irrespective of any inherent properties of the plant. Truthfully, the oils it contains can be found in many other common herbs such as oregano and thyme to which it is related and, as such, it contains antimicrobial properties used in the pharmaceutical industry but as for its supposed magical powers, well, Crete loves its myths.

This cave really is proving to be most illuminating. I think we’ll stay and explore and make an attempt on the summit next week. Fancy a cup of tea?

The Extra Bit

Back in January (see Riding The Griffin) we were discussing whether insects had emotions, a somewhat controversial idea as it is generally accepted that their nervous systems are too simple for such complex things. Recent research at Queen Mary University of London has found “that bees exhibit not just surprising levels of intelligence, but also emotion-like states” according to senior study author Professor Lars Chittka. Looks like our theory was correct then.

Just in case “The answer lies in the soil” is now annoyingly dominating your thought processes whilst you’d rather be thinking about something else it was Kenneth Williams who played Farmer Fallowfield in the 1950s BBC radio series Beyond Our Ken. (I don’t remember the originals - I’ve been listening to the repeats – honest).

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Thanks this week to malacologist Susan Hewitt at iNaturalist  for information on juvenile door snails.

LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

See detailed pictures at http://www.inaturalist.org/login  (search - people-stevedaniels-observations)

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)