Diario de stevedaniels

Ah, the sweet, rich smell of rain. That distinctive scent wafting up our nostrils comes from a naturally occurring plant oil that is absorbed by soil and rocks during dry periods. When rain falls, the oil is released into the air along with an organic compound called geosmin that's produced by the bacteria in wet soil. It’s this combination that creates that clean, earthy, “just-rained smell”. Rain itself has no odour. Even acid rain looks and smells just like the normal kind.

We’ve had rather a lot of rain recently but before we go down and see what effect it has had on our stream I noticed this little patch of ground when we emerged onto the track last week. It is regularly cultivated later in the spring but let’s have a look and see what’s taken hold before the rotavator moves in. Plenty of Wood Sorrell here at our feet and some stands of White Mustard in front of the Date Palms but just check out these little pink flowers. These are Small Herb Robert and they are certainly attracting the little Bee Flies. As their name suggests they are flies that have evolved to protect themselves by looking like bees. Whenever you come across an animal that seems to have two contradictory names the second name tells you what it is and the first name tells you what it resembles. Thus a Whale Shark is a shark that resembles a whale and a Curlew Sandpiper is a sandpiper that looks like a curlew and not the other way around.

Read on at https://niume.com/post/292461

We are nearly at the end of our journey down the Milonas Valley but before we reach the point where the little river enters the sea I want to take a slight detour to a small, fallow field nearby because it sums up this season of spring so succinctly. In this one field I counted twenty different wild flowers when I chanced upon it the other day so let us wander among the crown daisies and the poppies and watch spring in action.

Read on at https://niume.com/post/297091

Back in the middle of November last year we began our Descent into the Milonas Valley and here we are in the middle of April rapidly approaching the sea. Back then we were accompanied by Red Admiral and Painted Lady butterflies and now the Old World Swallowtails have joined us. I saw the first ones at the end of March and like the poppies that we saw last week they are now appearing about a month later than in 2006. A similar trend can be seen with the first swallows although the swifts are much the same as they were then. Only the vine leaves seem to be bucking the trend; they are now appearing about a month earlier. As we were discussing last week, the seasons are going out of synch.

https://niume.com/post/301744

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.

“Ferma is a settlement in the municipality of Ierapetra on the island of Crete. It is situated at the coast, 11 kilometers east of Ierapetra. Its beach is well known for its beauty.”

That's the Wikipedia entry for our village which ranks, for completeness, marginally above The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy entry for Earth as “Mostly harmless.” I thought that before we set off on our next expedition it would be nice to fill in a few more details. Last week we were down in the bay on the “beach well known for its beauty” so let's wander up onto the cliffs and take a look at the west end of the village.