The Dunescape of Drigg

 

How do you fancy a trip to the seaside? Or, more specifically, hunting for adders and tiger beetles in the sand dunes? We’re off to Drigg this morning, where I’ve heard that adders have been spotted recently and also to look for one of the UK’s rarest beetles, the northern dune tiger beetle, Cicindela hybrida, which has only been recorded here and at the sand dunes of Sefton, North Merseyside.

If we park up in the village here, then it’s just over a mile’s walk to the dunes, but it will give us a chance to look at the hinterland behind the dunes which seems to be mainly pasture and salt marsh. There’s a pair of raptors quartering the marshes, too distant to identify, but quite a few Stonechats using the fences as vantage points. These birds, relatives of wheatears, redstarts, flycatchers and robins, like to perch on bushes, such as gorse, and utter their call, which has been likened to two pebbles being clicked together. We’ve met this ‘Devil Bird’ before, you may recall, and the Scottish folklore that surrounds it, in Skordilio, Where God and The Devil Meet over in Crete.

Here we are on the dunes with their own, specialised, flora and fauna. There’s Sea Rocket down here, where the dunes meet the beach, and this has adapted to the habitat by producing cork-like seeds which float down the coast by longshore drift (one of the two things, along with ox-bow lakes, which we all seem to remember from school geography lessons), where it will establish new colonies. Another dune specialist is this Sea Spurge, which is a type of Euphorbia. Euphorbias are named after Euphorbus, the Greek physician to the King of Nubia (Juba II who married Antony and Cleopatra’s daughter). It was Euphorbus who noted the plants’ great laxative powers (history does not record how – possibly too much information), from which we get the common English name, Spurge, which simply means to purge.

There’s also Hedge Parsley, Wild Thyme and Bloody Cranesbill up here and an inordinate number of snails crawling about amongst this Lady’s Bedstraw (so called because the dried plants act as a flea repellent and, in mediaeval times, lady’s mattresses used to be stuffed with it). These two, I’m fairly sure, are in the Cepaea genus, because of their striped shells. If you look at the lip of the first shell you can see that it is brown, making it a Brown-lipped Snail, Cepaea nemoralis, whilst the lip of the second one is white, making it a White-lipped Snail, Cepaea hortensis. I am not, however, a snail expert, so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Snails are one of the menu items of choice for the European Common Frog, along with slugs, worms and insects – particularly flies, according to Sergius L. Kuzmin of The Russian Academy of Sciences. So this little fellow, sunbathing in the grass down here, has a choice of breakfasts as, not only are there a number of snails here, but also plenty of Crane Flies. Frogs themselves are favourite prey items of snakes, which is one of the animals we’ve come looking for today, but unfortunately they are conspicuous by their absence. I’ve a feeling that, despite the warm October sunshine, it is still a mite too chilly, and even more so for the Northern Dune Tiger Beetles which are probably tucked up snug in their burrows. Not a waste of time though, with our rapidly diminishing biodiversity, sometimes what you don’t see can be as important as what you do see.

It’s been a lovely morning for wandering about the dunes and these days we have to make the most of the ones that are left, as we’ve lost about 80% of this type of habitat in the last 80 years. All part of the Great Habitat Loss that is driving the current Mass Extinction Event, unfortunately. All is not totally lost however as the Dynamic Dunescape Project is making heroic efforts in dune conservation. Click on the link for an excellent article by Natalie Hunt about the project in general and the Northern Dune Tiger Beetle in particular.

That’s all for now, see you next week when we’ll be off to look at another one of those big puddles – Loweswater.

Steve

Steve's Books

Books make great Christmas Presents!

For the budding naturalist in the family, The Quick Guide to Creepy-Crawlies is a great introduction to invertebrates, suitable for all ages.

If you only want to spend a fiver on a friend, then Not Just For Twisted Women is available in paperback now, and The Eggs of Saramova and other stories will be available next month.

If you just want a little something for yourself to read, now that the nights are drawing in, then both story collections are available on kindle for the price of a decent cup of coffee.

Much as I hate self-promotion, people do tell me that they’re all cracking good books!

The Quick Guide to Creepy-Crawlies All you need to know to identify any type of insect, spider, worm or snail very simply and find out more about it. Yvonne: This was a gift for a family so that the children can understand what they see on days out. The second was for me. Logical and easy to use. If you know anyone who likes nature you can be confident that gifting this book will give years of pleasure.
The Eggs of Saramova A science fiction novella for those who don't like science fiction. A fast-paced thriller that is, literally, out of this world (and it starts right here in Crete). Too new for reviews yet!
Not Just For Twisted Women by Steve Daniels  A light-hearted look at life through the eyes of the fairer sex. Janet: If you are short on time but enjoy reading and are maybe not into long extended novels then Not Just For... Twisted Women provides readers with concise stories that stand alone and most certainly entertain with their ultimate twists. Loved it. Helen: A very good read! Well written and entertaining! Margaret: Each quick tale gives a glimpse into a character's life and has an often humorous twist at the end. I would love to read more. Yvonne: These days many people find it hard to find the time to read a novel, so this book of short stories is ideal to dip into. It is also makes a good gift.

See sample pages of all my books and latest blogs, and keep abreast of latest publications here: http://author.to/SteveDaniels

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LINKS:

Share your nature thoughts, photos and comments on Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Explore east Crete with the #CreteNature interactive Hiking and Nature Map

Crete	Cumbria
Cretan Flora Crete Birding Greek Butterflies and Moths	Cumbria Wildlife Trust Cumbria Bodiversity Data Centre Carlisle Natural History Society

Perivolakia – Rooftops and Pergolas

From Voila we'll make our way back to the main Sitia-Makrigialos road, travel south for a bit and then take the turn off for the village of Perivolakia. We could take a left at Etia and cut across country but I'm none too sure about the road surface and I'm a coward. Sometimes this village is spelt Perivolakia (which means pergolas) and sometimes Pervolakia (which means rooftops) and we have one of each on the left here. We also have a cascade of Mesembryanthemum flowing down this wall being pollinated by a couple of Hymenopterans. The big purple/black one is a Carpenter Bee and the little black one with the red legs is an Ichneumon Wasp. These wasps lay their eggs in the larvae of other living insects which troubled Charles Darwin somewhat. In a letter to Asa Gray, an American naturalist who spent much of his time promoting the idea that God and science were not mutually incompatible, Darwin wrote “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars”. It all depends upon your interpretation of “God” I suppose.

The path that we're on leads eventually through the Per(i)volakia Gorge to the Kapsa monastery and is waymarked with red arrows apart from at this little gully where it isn't. Which shall we take; left, right or centre? Middle for diddle? That was lucky, a little red arrow about twenty yards up the track (well, the Cretans did invent the labyrinth). I think we'll just go as far as those Cypress trees up there and have a scrabble around. Can you hear that Raven cronking away to our right somewhere? There he is, announcing our presence to all and sundry. Incidentally, the Cypress tree is named after Kyparissos, one of Apollo's boyfriends who accidentally killed his pet stag. Overwhelmed by grief he turned into a Cypress tree. Not a common occurrence, even in ancient Greece.

That was quite a hill that we just climbed so I think we'll rest by the wayside and take a look under a few rocks while we get our breath back. A nice couple of snails here, the two-toned job sitting on the fennel stalk is a Chocolate-banded Snail, Eobania vermiculata. The vermiculata part means noodles. Apparently the shell pattern reminded its discoverer of vermicelli which goes to show that you should never ask a malacologist to name something just before lunch. The other one is a Green Garden Snail which are collected from the wild in these parts at this time of year when they are most active. We humans have been roasting snails and eating them for over 25,000 years and it wasn't the French who started the trend in Europe but the Spaniards (or least-ways the Homo sapiens who were living on the Iberian peninsula at the time ¹).

Having found our snails we could do with a few vegetables to accompany them so how about some asparagus? As you go trampling over this golden hillside in search of it (which I doubt you'll find) you are crushing beneath your feet a perfectly acceptable substitute. This is Field Eryngo and, although it is the young shoots that you can use in place of asparagus, the roots can also be cooked as a vegetable and in addition you can candy them for dessert if you wish. That's lunch settled then. Looking down the hillside you can see the rooftops of the village so I think that Pervolakia without the 'i' is probably the more appropriate name.

Let's walk back down over these heather covered rocks until we regain the track once more. I have read tales recently of rather aggressive so called 'gypsy' heather sellers in the UK chasing people down the street trying to force their foil wrapped sprigs of lucky purple heather onto people. Here is a quick answer to them: “It's the wrong colour”. Purple heather is no more lucky than a three leaf clover, it is white heather that is supposed to bring good luck. The origin of the superstition is Scottish where it is purported to grow on ground where no blood has been shed. Given the country's bloody history it is somewhat scarce. An alternative derivation from that same country is that it grows over the final resting place of faeries but that's just heaping one myth upon another. Here in Crete we have two species; this pink heather, Erica manipulaflora, and the Tree Heath (which is white), Erica arborea. Scottish heather by contrast is Calluna vulgaris which is predominantly mauve with the occasional white variation. So you can tell your 'gypsy' charm seller that if she'd care to pop up a Scottish ben and get you some lucky white heather you'll consider buying a sprig.

Back down in the village the taverna has a colourful display of pot plants and on one of these we have a Large White butterfly, Pieris brassicae. You may recall that a couple of weeks back in Sklavoi we came across some of her caterpillars feeding on a caper bush, Capparis spinosa. I mentioned at the time that although they preferred Brassicas they had quite a range of food plants. I am indebted to Antonia Aga at Butterflies & Moths of Greece & Cyprus for alerting me to the fact that this is a new host plant observation for this species and a check with the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Database at the Natural History Museum of London confirms this. Which just goes to show that there are new observations to be made even with regard to such commonplace insects as the Large White butterfly.

The Extra Bit

¹ http://www.newser.com/story/192789/cavemen-first-ate-snails-30k-years-ago.html

For the stargazers among you there is quite a lot going on this week. If you venture out after midnight tonight (13^th) you can observe the Geminid meteor shower. Just before the dawn you can see Jupiter and Mars between the Moon and the Horizon and on Saturday evening, with the aid of a small telescope, you may be able to see the rock-comet 3200 Phaeton. http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/3200-phaethon-rock-comet-how-to-see

Photographic Bit

Many of you have asked me what photographic equipment I use so here's a quick rundown on the cameras used for each picture. 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.

Picture 1 Nikon COOLPIX S33

Insets Canon EOS 1300D

Picture 2 Nikon COOLPIX S33

Insets Canon EOS 1300D

Picture 3 Nikon COOLPIX S33

Insets Canon EOS 1300D

Picture 4 Nikon COOLPIX S33

Insets Canon EOS 1300D

Picture 5 Nikon COOLPIX S33

Insets Canon EOS 1300D

Picture 6  Canon EOS 1300D

Inset 2 Nikon COOLPIX S33

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)

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)

The Mind Blowing Dreamfish

There's no getting away from it, this May was very changeable weather-wise but we have a beautiful day today and here we are, back on the cliffs where we left off last week and the Prickly Pear is celebrating the sunshine by bursting into flower.

 

If you look at the lower plates you'll notice that the snails have decided that this is a great place to build their summer city. If it remains dry until October, which is quite possible, then this is where they'll stay all sealed up and conserving moisture.

If you take a look through the binoculars you can see a few Yellow-legged Gulls taking a rest on the clear, calm waters. No, it's not a seagull, there's no such bird (or so pedantic ornithologists maintain). Truth of the matter is we've been calling them seagulls since the 1540s for the simple reason that before we started dropping food all over the place inland and burying heaps of treats in landfill sites gulls were found by the sea where they could find a meal. Gulls, being intelligent, adaptable opportunists now quite happily form colonies far from the ocean waves. Even so, 'seagull' was a bit of a superfluity, after all, we don't call whales seawhales do we? 

That's the cliff path successfully negotiated so let's probe around the rocks and see what's occurring. Quite a few of these little woodlouse like creatures scurrying about. They are related as you might expect; along with shrimps, crabs and lobsters. They are all crustaceans (literally animals that have formed a crust referring to their hard carapaces). This particular one looks almost like two different animals joined together. The front half is quite sturdy with strong legs whilst the back half tapers off with trailing legs. This is rather a neat design; the front legs are land legs and the back ones are sea legs. Crustaceans with this body plan are called amphipods which is derived from the Greek meaning different feet. He's just dropped into the sea – change drive gear! I suggest that we don our snorkels and follow his example. We'll swim out and investigate those offshore islets, round the headland and come in to some rather nice rock pools.

We don't have big tides here in the Mediterranean so you don't have to dive too deep or swim too far to get out of the intertidal zone. Just a few metres down and these islets give us a whole new ecosystem to explore. Now if you thought the amphipod was weird, welcome to the venerable world of the demospongiae. These animals have been around for over five hundred million years. They have no true tissues, organs or nervous systems and they eat and breathe by letting the water flow through them (which is why they are full of holes). You've met them before of course, the familiar bath sponge (see Beachcombin') is a member of this class of ancient animals.

We're about half way to the rock pools now and in slightly deeper water and I see that we have a mixed school of fish swimming along with us which gives me the chance to reiterate the difference between venomous and poisonous. The golden eyed ones are Salema Porgies (which are poisonous) and the others are Dusky Spinefoots, a type of Rabbitfish (which are venomous). Where have you gone? Come back here. The Rabbitfish have a couple of spines containing venom which it uses for defence but don't worry, it's not strong enough to be a danger to us and we're not going to threaten them anyway. The Salema Porgies on the other hand can, in rare cases^[1], be poisonous and cause all sorts of hallucinations if you eat them. Hence their alternative name of Dreamfish. So, if something bites or stings and you get nasties in your bloodstream then it's venomous but if you eat something and get nasties in your bloodstream then it's poisonous. A nice little etymological distinction to muse upon whilst you're recovering in hospital.

Well, here we are at the rock pools which we'll be exploring next time so let's take a leisurely swim back to where we left our clothes and just enjoy the sun and the sea.

The Extra Bit

^[1] Hallucinatory Fish Poisoning (Ichthyoallyeinotoxism): Two Case Reports From the Western Mediterranean and Literature Review

#Jeremy the #Vine Hawk Moth caterpillar has eaten seven vine leaves and has waddled off under a stone to pupate. This may take him some time but I'll let you know when he emerges in his full glory.

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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)

Wildlife, Weeds and Who's Who in the Undergrowth

White Mustard

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been writing this whimsical diary of the Cretan countryside for a year: taking you with me as I wander up hills, delve into caves, venture beneath the waves and generally poke my nose under logs and stones to the chagrin of the animals dwelling beneath. It’s even more surprising that so many of you from all around the world continue to traipse around with me every week. Thank you. So get your boots on once again, grab your sweep nets and we’ll go and explore the weed strewn hillside for the last time this year and see what we can find on this fine, sunny morning.

This looks like a fertile hunting ground. Untouched by man since some new olive trees were planted here a year or so ago we’ve got plenty of grasses; mallow and crown daisy in leaf and a large patch of white mustard in flower. There are a lot of similar looking plants in the mustard (or cabbage) family, all having four yellow petals, and two of the key things to look at in detail are the beak-like fruits (called siliquae) and the hairs (or lack of them) on the leaves and stem.  Armed with this information and a good field guide you soon get adept at recognizing them.

(Coleopterans) Beetles

The beetles are back in numbers I see, and at all stages of development. Beetles undergo complete metamorphosis, that is, they start life as an egg, hatch out as nymphs and then pupate (like these ladybirds are doing) before emerging as adults in their many and varied forms. Some are big and showy (like this furry flower chafer) and some are really tiny like this little fellow I’ve just caught in my sweep net. Judging by his diminutive size and those clubbed antennae it could be a skin beetle (aka leather, carpet, larder beetle etc. as their larvae eat a number of man made products and can be quite a pest). The adults however tend to go for pollen which explains what he’s doing up here among the flowers.

(Hemipterans) Bugs

OK, your turn. There are two things to remember when wielding a sweep net. One, make long, low sweeps back and forth, just brushing the tops of the plants. Two, when you look into the bag make sure you don’t poke someone’s eye out with the other end. No, I’m fine, I ducked just in time. Oh, and a third thing: carry it with confidence. A middle-age person carrying a butterfly net may look eccentric but a middle-aged person trying to pretend that they’re not carrying a butterfly net looks a right plonker. Let’s see what you’ve caught. Aha, bugs by the bucket load, marvellous. This begs the question: what exactly is the difference between a bug and a beetle? Aside from the fact that ‘bug’, particularly in American English, is used to refer to any insect, scientifically bugs and beetles form two different orders (Hemiptera and Coleoptera).  As about half the insects that you come across in the field are either one or the other, differentiating between the two is a useful trick. Flight and bite is a good way to remember which is which. Beetles have hard, wing cases (elytra) which lift apart allowing the wings beneath to unfold and rather roundish faces with a pair of jaws (mandibles) used for chewing. Bugs have softer, more membranous wings (particularly at the ends) and often rather narrow faces always ending in a tube (proboscis) used for sucking up liquids. These then are all bugs: pointy at one end and soft at the other.

Orthopterans (Crickets and Grasshoppers)

While we’re on the subject of insect orders, I’ve rounded up a couple of other closely related fellows: a cricket and a grasshopper. These form the order Orthoptera and are easily recognized by their long, muscular legs adapted for jumping. Females of both types have an egg laying tube (ovipositor) at the back but only crickets have a pair of sensory organs (cerci) protruding from their rear ends. So, the chap on the left is a cricket, the chap on the right a grasshopper.  On the whole crickets tend to look somewhat flatter as well as they hold their wings against their bodies whereas grasshoppers hold their wings up more, like the roof of a house.

Gastropods (Snails and Slugs)

Let’s lay down in the grass a little and prod about in the roots. And here we find some lovely little slugs and snails (which tells me that this grass is probably a bit damp). Whereas beetles, crickets and the others fall into the class ‘insects’ (having six legs) within the phylum ‘Arthropods’ (animals with their skeletons on the outside), slugs and snails are in a class of animals called gastropods along with the occupants of the sea shells you find washed up on the beach. The thing they all have in common is a broad, tapered foot on which they glide about. They are part of the phylum ‘Molluscs’ or ‘Mollusks’ in American English. (languages evolve like species: if you separate them by a continent they have a habit of going their separate ways). This phylum contains all the soft bodied animals without a backbone which includes most of the items on the seafood menu such as clams, oysters, squid and octopus. 

Yellow-legged Gull

All of which reminds me – it’s nearly time for lunch. The weather seems to be closing in a bit too. Just look at that shaft of sunlight bursting out from the clouds over the sea. You can almost envisage angels descending from heaven. 

Well, maybe not angels but there are plenty of Yellow-legged Gulls flying about. They usually form an overwintering colony on the smooth rocks to the east of Livadi Beach so I must pop down there later on in the week to see how they’re doing this year.  Until next week then, when a whole new glorious twelvemonth awaits us – happy hunting and Happy New Year.

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LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Flowers of Crete

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)