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Black Spikes, Red Prowlers and Undersea Gardens

13/7/2016

by Robin Noble Photos by Robin Noble and Martine Howard

As I have reported before, we spend many of these hotter, humid days at sea, normally heading down the coast into Spanish waters. The cliffs are truly dramatic, almost savage, but there are several tiny, almost invisible little bays with fine shingle beaches, and, on calm days, some lovely swimming.

Much of our time has been spent getting to know the many fish on the Marine Reserve out of Banyuls, but there are other things of interest, too.

I must confess we have spent little time on the various brown seaweeds at the foot of the cliffs, and the all-too-many black and spiny sea-urchins really worry me, but, in brilliant contrast, Martine has recently photographed some bright red starfish, on the move across the seabed. The one illustrated here seems to have got into some sort of yoga position, but is certainly a rather handsome specimen.

While I was recently splashing around in one of our favourite little coves (which is backed by some magnificent rocks) I did observe that along the sea's edge on some of the more sheltered rocks, there some big, red beadlet sea anemones, roughly similar to those familiar from British coasts but somewhat larger. And, later, I noticed that some largish, flatter rocks, three or more feet under the surface, were pale, a sort of sandy-white in colour. The water is nearly always wonderfully clear, and I headed back to the boat to get my goggles, put my head under and get a proper view of whatever was causing this coloration. And having done that, I had to return to the boat for the little underwater camera in order to photograph it!

I hope the result is clear enough to give a good impression of this delicate, miniature, undersea garden which I saw there, and which I found quite entrancing. On close inspection it looks like a dense collection of tiny, delicate, white parasols and, according to the invaluable book "Marine Wildlife of the Mediterranean" (which we have mentioned before), it is a seaweed which goes by the poetic name of "mermaid's wine-glass"; the latin is less interesting perhaps- acetabularia acetabulum! The book says that it can be greenish, but what I saw was really all white, as was another seaweed around the place, again quite small, but delicate and this time "whorled" (does the word exist?) like a shell: the "peacocks's tail", padina pavonica. This I have seen growing larger and more abundantly around some Greek Isles, and it is great to be reminded of all the wonderful places within the compass of this Mediterranean Sea. We are so lucky!

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A Wealth of Wildflowers

8/7/2016

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by Robin Noble Photography by Martine Howard

For many of us, wildflowers, along with the butterflies that frequent them, are among the supreme beauties of the natural world, and this year they have been incredibly lovely. We recently made one of our quick trips right into the chain of the high Pyrenees, and were rewarded with some wonderful sights. But it was by no means all rarities, or plants of the alpine zone, which gave us such pleasure; sometimes, indeed very often, it was simply the common gorse and broom, which gave sheets of dense, brilliant yellow all over the already magnificent landscape. They presumably enjoyed the greater humidity of this past spring, which had left larger snowfields than is usual at this time of the year, themselves adding brilliance to the far views. (It is interesting, if puzzling, that this year from Orkney in the far North of Scotland, via Brighton on the south coast of England, to the Pyrenees, the gorse and broom has everywhere been remarkable.)

During this short trip of real contrasts (which included a walk of two kilometres in an enormous cave system blessed with fine ancient drawings of post-glacial wildlife), we found two locations which we have decided are among the most beautiful we have seen in the world, up there with the incredible Bryce Canyon in the United States.

The mountains were, each day, sublime, and the gorse, broom and remaining snow added to their beauty; so, too, did the many other flowers.

As ever, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive account of these, without writing a book, so I will have to be very selective. This year, the yellow of the gorse and broom has been matched by that of a small rock-rose, the Helianthemum alpestre, which is carpeting the hillsides up at La Batère also.

There was a huge amount of brilliant blue, the gentian (Gentiana bavarica), which we have also featured before, and which, this time, provided a foreground for wonderful views of the amazingly impressive Mont Valier. It was everywhere, and quite magical.

Also there we found one cushion of the flowers of the mountain avens, or Dryas octopetala, a lime-loving alpine with cream-and-gold daisy-like flowers, one of the favourites from Assynt in the far North of Scotland where I spent so much of my earlier life.

On the other day, in the vicinity of the fine peak called Le Roc Blanc, there were small wetlands below the remaining snowfields, and the clear streams issuing from them were bordered by a flower, which most folk will know from Britain: the marsh marigold or Caltha palustris. But, on both days, there was an exquisite delicate flower that was completely new to us. It either bordered the remaining snowfields, or grew in considerable numbers in areas where they had recently been, the grass still brown and flattened. The leaves were slender and hard to find, the flowers white and delicate, but reminiscent of buttercups. This is exactly what they turned out in the end to be; Lesley lent us her father’s “Alpine Flowers of Britain and Europe” (Collins, Grey-Watson and Blamey), and there we found the (rather obvious) Pyrenean buttercup, Ranunculus parnassifolius), a flower of exquisite beauty.

Lurking by a crystal stream was the pink flower of a primrose type. It was hard to see its tiny leaves, and awkward to photograph, but I think it was Primula minima, a sort of remote, mountain-cousin to the tiny, vivid Primula scotica which only grows along the North Coast of Scotland, and in Orkney. It is rather nice to be reminded, when in one astonishing location, of another, over a thousand miles away and totally different. Truly a wonderful world.

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Another Emporda Blog - And More Crayfish!

3/7/2016

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by Robin Noble

At the time Lesley was seeing her crayfish, we had gone down to the Emporda to spend a day at our favourite Nature Reserve. Every time we go, it is different, and once again it gave us a lovely and interesting day. Because of all the rain earlier in the year, it was remarkably lush, and walking one or two of the paths between the lines of trees, we were almost assailed by birdsong. Some we do by now recognise, like the Cetti’s warbler, but there were many others we did not know, and in the dense and humid green, it felt rather as I imagine Costa Rica to be, strange, exotic and full of birds. But there was one loud and constant call, which belonged in my mind elsewhere. This was the song of the common cuckoo, known from English copses or highland birchwoods, and not much heard by us in the last few years. But for us, it has been a year of cuckoos; I have heard them on the hill behind our house, and frequently again on a recent trip into the high Pyrenees.

It had obviously rained during the night, and as we walked a track from one hide to another, I saw a few quick movements in one of the puddles, and we stopped to look. The water was a bit muddy, and it took a while to get a reasonable view of the little creatures in this rather unlikely and limited habitat. They were clearly small crustaceans, perhaps a maximum of two inches long, with a little reddish-pink on the body, otherwise a dark grey. They were lively, and when we provided shadow, prepared to leave the water and venture on to the open track. One decided that Martine, who was photographing it, was an enemy, and adopted a fierce and defensive stance, claws menacing and wide – if rather diminutive.

We wondered what exactly they were doing there in this somewhat ephemeral habitat, but decided to leave them to their own devices and followed the track further to where it crossed a small, rather cloudy brook. While Martine tried for the perfect shot of a stork in the green meadow, I took a few snaps of the water, as I have always loved dark green pools under trees. While I was thus engaged, and therefore watching the water, I realised that there were more, much larger crustaceans, some half-hauled out on thin branches; the reddish colouration was clear on a few.

Of course, when we got home and read Lesley’s blog we realised that these were her crayfish, and, presumably, their young – perhaps in the spring even the young are highly mobile on land, especially if it is damp ground. In fact, it turned out that at the back of the Nature Centre itself, there is a pond, which contained some more of these creatures, which we could very easily observe. Martine added to our scanty knowledge of them when she saw one attack, kill, and start to eat a smaller one – so they are apparently cannibals!

The latter fact might be of some comfort to those who, understandably, are worried about the impact of these foreign species on the native amphibians and so on. While I know why folk are worried, I wonder whether in the longer term, we are right to be so concerned. Nature is far from static, and there is really no definitive list of creatures which belong to one location or another; creatures have come and gone, moved in and out, throughout history and before that, and, of course, many have become extinct, locally or internationally, during the course of time. That does not mean that I disapprove of efforts, for instance, to trap mink in Britain, in order to assist the populations of water-voles. Mink are very versatile predators, almost omnivorous, and therefore, very successful. If the crayfish are similarly rapacious, then efforts to catch them are obviously worthwhile – perhaps we missed a trick? I will have to check Lesley’s blog to see whether they taste good!

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Black Spikes, Red Prowlers and Undersea Gardens

A Wealth of Wildflowers

Another Emporda Blog - And More Crayfish!

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