Jumpers, Jewels and Jurassic Shells

 We'll leave the denizens of the Wildlife Hotel to their own devices and continue our walk around the village along the top track. A couple of weeks ago (Say It With Flowers) we found some interesting looking fossils. Just down the hill from where we are now in fact and this is a great fossil hunting area, particularly for sea shells from the time that Ferma was raised from the sea bed by a huge tectonic upheaval about twenty odd million years ago. So let's poke about in this exposed limestone and see what we can find. Not a bad little haul for ten minutes work; it looks like a couple of clams and a slipper shell. OK, so they're not from the Jurassic (roughly 145-200 million years ago) but Neogenic (2.5-23 million years ago) but that would have spoiled the alliteration. We'll probably find some of their modern relatives when we investigate the beaches later.

We'll wander off the track here for a bit and see what this rocky outcrop has to offer. It seems as though we have disturbed a robber fly at his breakfast. These are ambush predators that feed almost exclusively on other insects; in this case an unsuspecting cicada has been the victim. Despite their murderous habits I think that they're rather distinguished looking fellows with their great white beards – a sort of Father Christmas of the insect world, though not as benevolent, obviously.

We may find a bit of shade now as we move into the pines, it was getting rather hot on the exposed rock back there. I can hear a couple of greenfinches about but I've given up trying to spot them in this sort of habitat, they're too well camouflaged for my eyes. Not so this spectacular Jewel Beetle that's just landed in the Cretan Ebony. He looked like a little golden sphere of sunlight in flight and he's rather eye catching even down here among the foliage. I'll see if I can hoik him out so that you can have a better look at him. Unfortunately their beautiful, iridescent wing cases (the result of varying numbers of stacked chitin layers scientists discovered a few years back¹) has meant that they've been much prized in the jewellery world – hence their name. The old, old story I'm afraid; we don't consider ourselves particularly attractive, other animals are, so we kill them and adorn ourselves with the pretty bits. I still think that the wing cases look better on the beetles than on fop's finery. I've even seen them sewn into a tea cosy for goodness sake.

Enough grumbling about people's peccadilloes, we'll double back on ourselves and see what this grass bowl has to offer. Whew! This is quite a sun trap. Not much moving down here but the occasional grasshopper so I suggest that we move into the shade of that overhang (praying that we don't have an earthquake in the meantime). These are curious little red flowers growing up through the gravel. They are Stonecrop, hardy little plants that store their water in succulent leaves prior to flowering. This particular one, for the botanists among you, is Coastal Stonecrop (Sedum litoreum var. litoreum). It's getting hot again, even in the shade, let's continue along the track and see if we can find somewhere cooler to rest awhile.

Ideal, an old hillside hovel. The area is littered with these relicts with their built-in fireplaces and storage niches. This one still has its roof more or less intact but the floor doesn't appear to have been swept for a while. Nice places for spider hunting and we have a representative of my favourite family here; the salticidae or jumping spiders. They're easy to recognise, not only by their way of running (in short, jerky hops) but from their eye pattern which you can see if you look at his head under the hand lens. The jumping spiders have two small eyes set well back on the top of the head, either side of that black band, as well as the six forward facing eyes. Each spider family has its own distinctive eye pattern and this is theirs.

Next week we'll trundle off down the hill and if this heat keeps up we'll soon have to think about getting under the waves once more and meeting up with our fishy friends again.

The Extra Bit

We've spent a fair bit of time recently walking through wild oats and you will have undoubtedly noticed their method of seed dispersal. They spear any passing large animal (like us) with a very sharp and cunningly barbed javelin in the hope that we will transport the seed to a new and favourable location. Having stopped every quarter of a mile or so to rid ourselves of these painful adherents we have completed the job to the oats' satisfaction if not exactly to our own.

¹ http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1565/709

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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)

Along the Ardefsi

After last week’s somewhat arduous trek, both physically from the top to bottom of the Milonas valley and mentally through the annals of evolution, I thought we’d reward ourselves this week with a quiet walk along an ardefsi. To be more precise an ardefsi kanali or, in English, a less poetic sounding irrigation canal. These little concrete canals were built to take water from the hills and mountains to the farmlands below but nowadays have fallen into disuse, replaced by ubiquitous black plastic pipes that snake their way across the landscape like so much spaghetti negro. In truth, they are not too obtrusive as they soon get covered with a layer of brown dust and begin to blend in. So with the sun shining across a millpond like sea, the sky turning a shade of cornflower blue and the first Swifts of the year wheeling overhead and uttering their shrill squeaks of delight let us sally forth along the ardefsi and see where it leads us.

Cistus, Star Clover and Pimpernel

The swifts? Yes they usually appear at any time from mid March to the end of April along this part of the coast. Last year I didn’t see them until the end of May which either means that they were delayed or I was being unobservant, both of which are possible. But what have we here? See how the ardefsi has filled up with earth over the years providing a microhabitat for some of our smaller flowers. Shielded by the ridge behind and in the lee of the pink flowering cistus bush we have some Star Clover (those of you with long memories will remember that we found this and other clovers last Spring out at Bramiana Reservoir) and some Scarlet Pimpernels. Yes, I know that they are blue but if you’ve read Baroness Orczy’s novel of the same name you will recall that Sir Percy Blakeney, the eponymous hero of the story, was a master of disguise. There are three forms of this flower: orange, red and blue. Personally I have only seen the orange and blue forms out here, never the red. I seek it here, I seek it there, …that demned elusive Pimpernel. Sorry, getting a bit carried away there.

Robber Flies mating on a fallen Pine

It would seem that our path is not going to be as easy as we thought. We’ve already had to clamber up and down the hillside a couple of times to avoid dense shrubbery and now a fallen pine tree is blocking our way. However, fallen trees are always good for a find or two and this one I see is providing a marital bed for a pair of Robber Flies. Now this is interesting: Fauna Europea only lists one species of Robber Fly out here, Cerdistus creticus, which we had the pleasure of meeting whilst walking round The Bottomless Lake of Agios Nikolaos but these look slightly different. We’ll send some pictures off to a few experts and see what they make of them. Now, do we go over, under or round? Over I think.

Longhorn Beetle among the Yellow Asphodels

The fallen tree seems to have presaged a slight descent around a pine cloaked valley which will give us a bit of welcome shade. It really is getting quite hot today. Is it my imagination or is that stretch of our canal opposite us going uphill? Never underestimate the powers of Greek geometry. I see we still have some of our old friends the Yellow Asphodels in flower down here in the cool depths although most of them are now setting seed and looking like stalks of tiny Golden Delicious apples. A couple of weeks back on our walk to The Chamomile Lawn we found the dying flowers full of Orange Blossom Bugs but today we have a new visitor, a beautiful little Longhorn Beetle that goes by the name of Agapanthia. Just look at those magnificent black and white banded antennae.

Quaking Grass and Swallowtail Butterfly

With the valley dropping far away below us the ardefsi seems to be making a loop around the head of it. I wonder if we can peer over the edge? Wow! Another vertiginous chasm, we must find a way down into it at some point in the future, make a note will you? The rock face opposite looks quite damp, there may well be pools at the bottom teeming with interesting discoveries. But that’s for another day, let’s go and sit on the ardefsi and just soak in the sights, sounds and smells that surround us. There’s a beautiful warm breeze coming over from Africa and we’ve all the time in the world to relax and take it all in. This part of the ardefsi is full of little Quaking Grass, nodding their heads in approval of the Spring Sunshine and look, the first Swallowtail butterfly of the year and I do believe I saw a Clouded Yellow earlier, flitting through the pine trees like a slice of lemon on the wing. Ahh! Let’s just stay here in this idyllic spot all week shall we?



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)