Navaselva Meets Navasola – The Call of the Wild Valley

The serialisation of Part 1 of The Call of the Wild Valley continues. There will be an episode every Sunday until the end of June.

This week the story focusses on the journey of the bee- eater and buff-tailed bumble bee to the north to find a cooler climate.

Please follow the link below for episode 4. A google search for Navaselva, Call of the Wild Valley should also get you to the Blogger site. All the episodes so far are available to read.

http://www.navaselvathecallofthewildvalley.com/2023/05/episode-4.html?m=1

A bee- eater at Navasola

Bee- eater numbers in our area seem to be lower now. It is hard to find out information and whether their journeys are changing but there are more sightings in the UK than ever before. Some bee- eaters like the character Abe Mero are trail blazers seeking out new places. Certainly their food sources may too be in decline and water sources along with changeable weather which can all impact on breeding success and survival.

The inspiration or information background for these characters in the novel came when I read an article about how difficult it is for bumble bees to adapt to rising temperatures and their range for moving is very short. But a bee- eater that needs bees can cover the distances needed to find more suitable places. The idea for this unlikely pairing grew.

We think a buff-tailed bumble bee but we get lots of white tailed bumble bees in the Sierra Aracena and it can be difficult to identify these similar looking types.

Bridge House publishing and myself would welcome more comments on the actual blogger blog site for Navaselva, Call of the Wild Valley. Please let us know on this site if you are having difficulties subscribing or commenting.

We will be halfway through next week. Please feel free to comment as this will help with our final revisions and marketing. Adults and young adults are the target audience.

What parts are you enjoying, been surprised by or have found difficult?

In what ways can this novel enhance ecological awareness and empathy for wild species?

Can fiction do this or does knowledge about nature have to be factual?

The Evergreen trees of Navasola and the Evergreen short story anthology.

My story recently published in the anthology Evergreen is partly from within the consciousness of a fir tree grown only for Christmas. But it survives beyond the festive season and connects and inspires a variety of local children until …..The story is called Until We are Ever Green. It contains quite a few ‘untils’!

A variety of christmassy trees in the Fir and Spruce section in Kew Gardens. We were in search of Abies alba but found so many other different kinds of fir.

It is late January and we are finally back at Navasola after dull but changeable temperatures for the UK in the winter. It was a rather frustrating time with so much illness from bad coughs/ colds/ sinus and the worst I have had since leaving the classroom. Here at Navasola it is very cold but the sun is high and bright with andalucian blue skies. We also have our supply of wood from when so many branches of trees came down in the bad storm of 2020.

So thanks to the trees we can keep warm at night when at present the temperatures are falling below zero.

There is also so much green thanks to our own evergreen trees in stark contrast to the denuded old chestnuts. However without the leaves there is much sunshine on the woodland floor. Their leaves will come back later than most in May.

Pollarded old chestnuts supply lots of fallen branches.

View walking down the hill from the gate. Chestnuts and pines on other side of the valley.

Many branches fell from these millennial chestnuts in ‘tormenta Barbara’.

Navasola’s Ever Greens

Olea europaea, Olive Olivo.

The olive trees’ grey green leaves keep dancing in the chilly skies. All the olives need to be picked by end of December but any left will make good food for birds or other animals when fallen to the ground.

Black olives high in tree against Andalusian blue sky

There should be some olives later

Quercus suber, alcornoques, cork oak

The cork oak leaves show different shades of pale grey green. The tree trunks are well insulated and fire resistent. Cork trees can only have their cork cut every 8 years or more.

Cork trees still green in Autumn near Castaño.

Newly corked cork tree on Galaroza path

Two cork trees growing by our house. The bigger one was like the thin one 15 years ago. Both self seeded!

The Holm oak, encina, Quercus ilex or known as the evergreen oak.

encinas or holm oaks are stretching higher to the sky in their self seeded grove. These are the trees of pasture land or dehesa and can be found across vast swathes of Spain evenly spaced out to provide shade for grazing animals. These trees are also excellent for wood burning too.

The common ivy or Hedera helix dresses up many a trunk and keeps its green even when the frost bites. The Mirbeck oak also hangs onto its glorious display of red orange leaves until the new arrive.

Winter trees by the ivy perimeter wall.
Quercus canariensis, mirbeck oak

Pyrenean oak now fully covered in ivy so green in winter and a haven for birds and other insects.

Arbutus unedo, madroño, strawberry tree.

The madroño tree or strawberry tree is very hardy in the frost or heat. And home to the caterpillar of the Two tailed Pasha.

Madrono flowers and fruit

Bullfinch on madrono through kitchen window

Arbutus unedo, madroño, strawberry tree.

Two tailed pasha hatches in July or August

Wild viburnum tinus does not grow into a tree but can grow very tall around the trees. It is usually in flower by the end of January as the bees wake up. But at the moment it is rather frost bitten with the colder icier winter we are having here.

There are many wild pines too. Mainly Pinus nigra or black pine. These grow very tall very quickly and thrive here on sandy soils. These are different to the cultivated umbrella pines found a bit further south towards Huelva. Stone pine, Pinus pinea.

wild viburnum tinus

Blue skies and tall pine for blue sky thinking!

I think many readers of my blog will enjoy the stories under the theme of Evergreen in this Bridge House Publishing anthology. Apologies that it is only easily available on Amazon but we would love you to read, review and share the stories.

Bridge House Publishing’s launch of Evergreen and other Cafe Lit short stories. I finally meet my writing mentor too, author Debz Hobbs Wyatt.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evergreen-Multiple-ebook/dp/B0BMW5K6GJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2JXZC9KIQI2SY&keywords=evergreen+anthology&qid=1674852585&sprefix=evergreen+anthology%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1

https://www.bridgehousepublishing.co.uk/

https://debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk/

A song for the golondrinas and some of my House Martin Survey, Cabanas de Tavira, Algarve, Portugal 2015 to 2022.

 I began my house martin survey in 2015 and each year try to look around the once welcoming fishing village for signs of their nests. Of course now Cabanas is more of a tourist village by the Ria Formosa and the buildings are less kind for the ledges needed. Once there were more house martins on the ‘frontline’ but now most nests have been deterred or destroyed. In one place above various shops and entrances to the small indoor shopping area there were 35. This year there are about 5.

However behind the Spa shop there is a good stretch and the birds can build their mud nests there and avoid the complaints of a mess as a long platform was put up to protect the ground from the delicacies of house martin poo.

Building nest March 2015

Close up, building nest, March 2015

 

 The art of building a nest must somehow be passed on between the generations. Proximity to water and mud is important. Each beakful is carefully positioned ready to stick to the next.

House martins seem to like to choose the same spots and just refurbishing a nest site will mean that they can get on with the business of mating and laying the eggs from March.

High winds can delay their arrival and the parents to be will be pretty exhausted by the thousands of miles they have flown across Africa. So having to rebuild from scratch or search for another site delays their ability to breed. However many of the parents will try again for a second brood. If these can fledge and build up reserves before the end of September they might make the long journey back.

From the RSPB and SEO in Spain there are requests to help these birds by keeping nest sites in situ over the winter. Of course it is illegal to destroy any nest that is in use or being built.

This year in Cabanas I found 100 nest sites in the Spring. The school still provides for many under the eaves and also in the older part of town there are more. The town council appears to have an interesting extra wall front behind which there were quite a few.

But all the new builds seem very unfriendly to these Spring visitors. In our ‘beco’ there have always been a small community and the trad design of our flats does provide the ledging. But many are prevented from returning by netting and plastic hanging down. More unsightly than the nests.

Song of a small golondrina or andorinha ( spanish/ portuguese)

Dear humans, please leave our nests alone,

And like you

We do like to be beside this seaside.

The sand and tides turning help us out

With just the right consistency of mud

We build our homes close to the sea

Where we can almost have food for free

So many insects to shout out about

Making us and our young strong

And ready for the long flight back.

High above the many folk below

May sometimes stand and stare

In a kind of wonder at our flight

But know too little of who we are

And why we have to come so far.

From June through July and August the first broods gather on the phone wires as if at school all in a line and getting ready for the flight of their life.

From past reading there is little known about where these birds go back to in Africa and house martins might still be too small for satellite tracking.

We believe they flock together to fly together across the Sahara but we do not know if the parent birds lead the way.

Here’s to the wonderful house martins of Cabanas de Tavira and the joy they bring some of us. I only wish more people would notice these incredible birds and make a stand for their presence here among the tourists.

* We think here in Spain and Portugal that golondrina or andorinha are used for both swallows and house martins. But in Latin – Delichon urbicum

Young house martins gathering in Cabanas de Tavira 2020.

—————–

Thanks too to Katharine Otto for making the first move to try and post by phone. This is my first attempt too. So apologies for not many photos but some recent ones from the phone! And oh, some more added from my library!

More on the survey later in the year. At present we await family for a holiday and have been enjoying nights out in Tavira with the free concerts. The band last night called SAL formed in the pandemic and this is their first year of playing live concerts. It is with great relief to find some of the normality and conviviality back again in our lives.

 

Feeding young in August

High wire young ones in August

Mayhem in May: Changing weather and other surprises. A sanctuary for snakes!

The May in May. The beautiful hawthorn near the back of our house and its may blossom in the sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild peonies after the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mayhem here in the south of Spain is not just of the political kind as Spanish democracy votes in a new Prime Minister. Here the weather has remained cool, cloudy but with some beautiful sunshine and thunderous storms. May has gone, the month and as yet not the long suffering UK Prime Minister! Our month of May has been full of wild, wet and windy weather but with some glorious moments. Weather forecasters here in Spain seem to blame this on the USA and Canada. Well,it seems there has been a meeting of a cold front and a warm front and that’s blown over to us across the Atlantic!

Don’t cast a clout till May is out, goes the proverb.But June too began with cloudy, thunder threatening, days.With this inclement weather some wild ones arrived seeking shelter near the house. The feral kitten population seems to expand around this time but we rarely see them again. They will not come near and I fear many give up their lives to the foxes, mongoose, and snakes that live or should live outside of our house.

feral kittens

Hiding near house.

My day in May began with the need to photograph the very green mosses on the rocks and experiment some more with my new camera. I wanted some close ups before the moss dries out and I had become fascinated by these ‘micro forests’ since reading the book ‘The Signature of All Things’. The main character Alma specialises in mosses and ‘discovers’some of the principles of evolution through a detailed study of adaptation. She talks about’moss time’ and the very slow evolutionary changes that take place. However, on reading the book ‘The Emerald planet’ about how plants have changed and adapted to planetary conditions, it seems it took over 40 million years for leaves to come into existence and changes in carbon levels in the atmosphere affected this. Human evolution in comparison to this took minimal time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chestnut in early May with no leaves yet

Moss around the chestnut trunk base.

So after the sunny morning taking photos of mosses, wild flowers,camelia and lilac,the clouds came and then dramatic storms.

 

It was thunderous and torrential rain. Dramatic change. And then T discovered a 3ft long snake disappearing behind some of my plant pots. We were struggling to identify this and it was very difficult to take a clear photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then another day, a month later, we had more torrential rain and another visitor. I had taken shelter from this downpour inside the house in my sanctuary but on the storeroom side T saw a snake’s tail. We identified this one quite easily.

Ladderback adult snake in house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snakes in the South of Spain and Portugal.

We are lucky that there are few venomous snakes here and none with particularly fatal bites. I think more people in this area might be hospitalised for eating the wrong kind of wild mushrooms.

Snakes are a vital part of an ecosystem and like most wild animals would rather escape from us humans but can be dangerous if trapped or threatened in some way. Snakes may have a bad press but we can learn to live near them if we take a few precautions.

We identified the snake in early June as a ladder snake with two distinct stripes. Just visible from my yet another failed attempt to photo a snake. These snakes have markings like a ladder when young. As they become adult and much larger the ladder rungs disappear and leave the two stripes along the length of the snake. Snakes will certainly help control a rodent population. We think there are some bumps  to be seen. Perhaps a swallowed mouse or small rat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On looking at the snake in May I have begun to think that this was a ladder snake but it looked a bit circular or even zig zag like a viper. Perhaps the rungs are just beginning to disappear on this one. It certainly did not fit any other similar snakes for our area so think this is the answer. We couldn’t see its head either; a triangular shaped head and vertical pupils indicate vipers and therefore poisonous.

Long snake which was hard to identify but think now is a young adult ladderback snake. Just beginning to lose the ladder and to just have the two single stripes.

 

One amazing fact about ladder snakes is that the females stay with their young for a few days. A more sanguine fact is they can be aggressive and bite and these bites can be painful even though not poisonous. Snake bites contain anti coagulants that prevents the blood from clotting and so can take time to heal too.

So what to do with a snake in the house, over 3 feet long, possibly a good rodent killer but with a painful bite if suddenly disturbed. Well, the internet and some helpful advice. We thought about the blanket option of covering over the snake and then gathering it into a bag. I didn’t quite like the idea of the broom to guide it to the door and this was the upper part of the house and no door to the outside! Our ecologist friend sent a note about providing a black bag or box as snakes like dark places. Well, there were plenty of dark spaces behind all the boxes and it had gone under a bag near the pipes. In this area we left one of the natural rocks and built over it. We thought the snake would hide there.

Too much deliberation. When we came to look under the bag by the rock the snake had gone. After some thought we think there may be a natural hole in the rock and the snake has left the house. I did check under the bed that night though.

Here is a good phone photo of another kind of southern Spain and Portugal snake. This was taken by a friend in Cabanas de Tavira. It has distinct markings and is a horse shoe whip snake. Photo opportunities of wild ones are all about good observation, quick thinking and fast shutter speed, and luck with the light!

Horseshoe whip snake photographed by Rosalind Siggs

Most of our days in May have been spent on exploring some local walks suggested by a bird and wildlife guidebook to our part of the Sierra Morena. It has been good walking weather and an abundance of wild flowers. Hopefully I can run some posts on these when I return from another visit to see my grandchild, now trying to stand! She is growing so fast but with all the changes in my life I just about manage a blog post a month. I will try and keep posting and keep up with all your posts too.
 

 

On the other side of the fence the grass is always greener. Post BREXIT it MUST be for the sake of our green and pleasant land!

On the other side of the fence the grass is always greener.
Post BREXIT it MUST be for the sake of our green and pleasant land!

Buff Tailed Bumblebee, April 2016, by Ruth Konigsberger.

I have been grappling with the consequences of the referendum vote and have attempted to share with you my understanding about the EU directives for Nature and Farming subsidies. We all need to be more clued up as our government will begin to frame new legislation or perhaps include EU ones. We must ensure that the UK becomes Greener however muddy the grass looks now. Nature deserves the best from us.

English woods in Spring, garlic mustard

Skidby Mill and wind power

Cherry Tree in Brentford and isleworth’s Quaker Meeting House Garden.

Lets find our way out of this labyrinth

Kew Gardens needs research funds

Kew Gardens London, Clouds gathering over cuts to world famous research. Storms and glasshouses.

Cuts at Kew for expert botanist.

By 2016, the EU under the direction of Member States and the European Parliament has achieved the world’s best record of comprehensive directives and legislation to ensure the environment we humans live in and the rest of the biodiverse species that live in or visit Europe are protected. Protected from habitat destruction, air and water pollution, climate change.  Considering the EU started out as an elite club for business this record in my mind and that of many British conservation organisations had been a good reason to vote remain.

Profit before planet or planet before profit is a way of deciding actions in a very complex world.  Dare we continue to decide profit first? There is a terrific decline in the numbers of migratory and farmland birds.  Add to that the decline in our diverse range of pollinators. We will all profit if we protect the diversity of the natural world.

Disturbing art work at Donana Birdfair, Southern Spain

Grey plover in adult winter plumage. Pluvialis squatarola.

Ringed plover

Birds without borders

Red rump swallow recovering from being stunned and ready to fly off.

The wildlife trusts made a statement about why they advocated remain but also stated that whatever the outcome  it would need all organisations that care about nature to step up and ensure environmental protection is continued and improved. The cliff we are really on the edge of is a climate that will make supporting diverse forms of life more difficult. Habitat destruction, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, reducing carbon emissions and preserving water are paramount to all life on earth. The EU directives attempt to address this.
In Britain we should be proud of the role we have played in this within the EU. As a public we support many conservation organisations like the RSPB and have a love for the British countryside and nature. Even political parties at different ends of the political spectrum; UKIP and the Green Party, their MEPs voted against any relaxation in the EU directives and legislation which protects our rapidly dwindling natural world.

David Attenborough expressed his concern about the environmental effect of leaving the EU. It is now the time for all of the public, whichever way we voted, and the charities that look after our beautiful and green England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to hold our politicians to account and ensure that our precious natural places, wildlife and countryside are at the forefront of new legislation and will abide by the EU directives for nature.

Red Admiral, MartinMere Wetlands Centre;

wildflower meadow, Spain

Fritillary on scabious on wild flower meadow

Clouded yellow

swallowtail at Navasola

BUT we also have the thorn in the side of farm subsidies. Subsidies to support hardworking farmers manage when crops or markets fail may seem a good idea. However, these payments to farmers, landowners have not been without controversy in the history of the EU. From an investigative journalism website there were details of where this EU collected money went to in each country. Now I knew some of this but when I began to look at the ones that had benefitted from very high amounts I was shocked. From a farmer in Romania being given a subsidy of 400 euros to the Duke of Westminster( considered the third richest person in the UK) receiving half a million. His Polish distributors, Cogent received over 8 billion in dairy subsidies. Now, this might mean support for many farmers in Poland but it seems a lot. Finally,  there has been a drive to reform these subsidies.

Examples of EU work to reform aspects of farm subsidies

Luxembourg (2012) ‘Greening Instruments – menu for
Member States within the EU framework’. Presented to the
Special Committee on Agriculture. April 2012.

European Commission (2012) Concept paper – May 2012
Agricultural Council – Greening
IEEP (2012) Agriculture and Rural Development –
European Parliament rapporteur reports and conference on shaping the future CAP
Defra feedback at CAP Greening Workshop held on 5 October 2012.
The National Trust & The Co-operative Farms – ELS+
in England post 2014 – Report
Cumulus Consultants Ltd & IEEP – CC-P-570
Issue: 2.0
Date: 21.11.12

The Common Agricultural Policy ( CAP) reform is intended,
to address the challenges of climate change
and sustainable management of natural resources,
look after the countryside and help
make these subsidies …GREENER!

The E.U. pays out more than half its annual budget, around €53 billion, in farm subsidies, four times as much as the United States. The subsidies cost each European Union citizen around €110 a year, according to the European Commission, a healthy chunk for a family of four. The money is raised from customs duties, sales taxes and a contribution made by each E.U. country based on its wealth.

In order to make Farming and Environmental concerns link up and be more accountable there have been a variety of initiatives. Environmental Stewardship, Ecosystem Services and general Rural Development funding.

With the Brexit battlebus and the millions to be saved in money to the EU there has already been cries from various recipients of EU money to ensure continuity. Much has been invested by EU money through CAP, to charities like the National Trust with environmental concerns and other rural development funding. It seems in Cornwall there has been major investment in rural development and the plans were for this to continue into 2020.

I have read some interesting blogs on these and on ecosystem services and new ideas from the EU. Miles King Miles King
Jeff Ollerton Jeff Ollerton
Adrian Colston

The New York Times reports
At the same time, the E.U. was shifting more funds away from farmers to a rural development plan that paid out €8.5 billion last year. The idea was to wean the countryside off its addiction to subsidies by encouraging it to diversify.
The money, according to E.U. guidelines, could flow to any number of development objectives: organic farming, farm tourism, infrastructure, renewable energy products and rural businesses. National governments were given great leeway in choosing recipients.
e.g that is how a gravel manufacturer like Arids qualifies for farm subsidies, as did Pasquina, which collected €1.13 million for its new asphalt factory in Spain. The Spanish utility Endesa also was eligible — it received €466,000 for installing electrical connections.
Cargill — the mammoth food producer that is the largest privately held company in the United States, with revenues of €120 billion in 2008. Last year Cargill received at least €10.5 million, collecting subsidies in eight E.U. countries.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/global/17farms.html?_
Other sources for this blog
Lawton, J.H. et al. (2010)
Making Space for Nature: a review of England’s wild
life sites and ecological network
Report to Defra.
The National Trust & The Co-operative Farms – ELS+
in England post 2014 – Report Cumulus Consultants Ltd & IEEP – CC-P-570
Issue: 2.0
Date: 21.11.12

 

The UK  government with our pressure
MUST
1. Ensure the same if not better level of environmental protection and strengthen the EU nature directives. The UK helped create them.
2. Ensure any subsidies for farming is linked into the already good work achieved by many landowners in Environmental Stewardship. Have high standards for nature, farm animals and sustainable farming.
3. Public accountability and transparency in how this becomes UK law and is abided by.
4. Involvement of a wide alliance of environmental organisations in the development of any new regulations, use of tax payers money for farm subsidies, and further progress in keeping England greener than green.

We must ensure we are not ‘fracked off’ into the sidelines of environmental progress. I am not sure but I believe our role in the EU has helped lead on this. We can still help and support other countries in the EU and elsewhere through e.g Birdlife International and other groups but we will have lost the power to really influence the way the EU moves forward on the environment. We may just be too busy dealing with the outcomes of this post brexit world on our own environment and lives.

There is the loss. Nature has no Borders. There needs to be cooperation and leadership at this time in the world’s history. Joined Up thinking.

SO we must ensure we are GREENER on all sides of any fences. Then maybe,  just maybe there would be no need for fences.

Wild and cultivated flowers can mix!

Down by he well; very full now

Renewables; solar electric and solar thermal

free range pigs, having a laugh

Chameleon in a nature reserve in the Algarve

House Martin eeding young in August

High wire young ones getting ready to fly from the Algarve to somewhere in Africa.

saving a baby swift

Reforestation needed, old chestnut trees in abandoned woods

Bored waiting but good way to save water

Summer green in my overgrown garden!

Grow your own! A friend’s London allotment

Back home: June at Navasola, Wild flowers and Wicked ways. Never pick wild flowers. No recoge las flores salvaje.

‘Wild flowers are for everyone to enjoy. Leave them alone.’ The photo is of a wild iris for all to admire, part of the ecosystem for bees and pollinators, the plant needs to fulfil its life cycle to survive and reproduce.  Never pick wild flowers. No recogas flores salvajes. Some are very rare now and some extinct. Many are extremely poisonous. Best left alone!

I have spent over a month away from Navasola. While I have experienced snow in Dorset, spring  breezes in Rhodes and hot weather in London and Manchester during April and May the weather here in the South of Spain has been mainly wet. This desperate downfall of water has created an abundance of growth: wild flowers, bracken and high grasses. My vegetable garden is hard to see and also the rock flower garden. But with a bit of work I am getting it less sneeze inducing and for better or worse a bit less wild. I struggle with this but need a few patches where I can try and grow things. This is where I have to discern rare flowers from less rare but all have their part and I love seeing how so many can self seed. I leave many but the cultivated ones struggle to survive if overgrown with the wild ones!  Below is the view from my sanctuary window after a bit of work. I moved the lemon balm which had gone mad and put in a rose from Ruth. There are some wild ones in the photo, a local lily,  three wild alliums  and some to be named! This type of red rose is cultivated and irrigated in this area. It flowers for a long time and the bees love it.

 

 

 

 

 

I have been busy in the UK visiting friends, family and two lovely weddings and for the last week I have had friends and family to stay with me here. We have walked around the finca and found lots of different wild flowers and exuberant growth. Lotti, Ruth’s dog also found where the boar had been taking mud baths and had left their two toe prints. For a short while we had had a stream running into our pond and out the other side. I could have grown rice!

Lotti smelling the wild boar

Boar print after mud bath; a hollow!

Down by he well; very full now

phlomis in May

green growth

foxglove

Cistus

There are also lots of wild iris and foxglove about. Higher up on the hillside it is covered with pink silene and some white ones. There are also lots of yellow flowers and tolpis with tiny white snowflake flowers close to the ground. Too hard to photograph the beauty of such a spread.

Last year outside our gate there was a beautiful wild orchid which I photographed but not clearly enough. This year I was sent a message and we joked and using the expression from the German New Year comedy ‘same procedure as last year’ . Unfortunately, this year within the last few days, someone has come and picked the flower stem.  It seems that the wild iris  is picked too. It is such a shame when wild flowers are interfered with and the orchids are rare. I can only hope that the main part of the plant will be able to flower again. I’m sure it was my parents who used to say wild flowers are for everyone to enjoy, leave them alone. Now, it is a conservation issue too. Too much of the wild is being lost by human hands.

Wild gladioli outside the gate to Navasola

Thapsia, tall and elegant on the verge.

 

 

 

Now I am back I hope to catch up with as many of you as I can  while trying to grow my own veg and finish that novel about the wild ones.

The White tailed Bumblebee; A persona poem.

Bombus Lucorum’s  Dramatic monologue or Persona Poem

( Her thoughts while being photographed in January at Finca Navasola, Sierra Aracena Spain)

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may well know me as just a mere bumbling bee

But I am more clever than you think.

My lineage is pre Linnaeus *and to our own kind

We keep ourselves. It’s only you who can confuse

And give us a Bombus Lucorum complex.

If you observe more carefully

And observe you must

Our whiter than white tails, our yellow bands.

But we are more deceptive than you think:

We will not help to pollinate

We merely take the nectar sweet

With proboscis purposefully evolved,

Or tongue for you non latinates,

Adapted slowly over time.

 

I fear I speak abruptly for your kind of kind.

My life is too worn out with weary work.

My genes do not give me the time

To rest inside a burrowed hole,

Like her, with constant demands for more and more.

 

Today you see us swinging from bright flowers;

The yellow sun was kind when first we left.

Our Lady Queen insistent on our following

The path of workers gone before.

We serve, we serve the future of our kind.

We work and work and have no time

Like you to stand and stare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why does the weather change like this?

The stem I have to cling to fast.

The wind is strong too strong too strong for us.

My sister worker in a gust falls into fallen leaves,

So wet with days of rain, her wings can’t fly,

Too weak with days without the chance of food.

The rain it comes with furious speed.

So wet, too wet on dripping leaves.

So near, so far from the desire to feed

On flowers few in this so cold a Spring.

Why did our Lady think this was the time to breed?

So warm it was and then the weeks of rain.

The wind now stronger I too fear I’ll fall

Be blown away far from the way back home.

I fear today we came too far

Too far.

I fear today we came too far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Linnaeus 1761

THANKS TO

1. Wikipedia for so much information in one place on the White tailed Bumblebee   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_bumblebee
2. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust. And ideas to be  BEE KIND

 

This was prompted by a prompt from Dverse Poets  http://dversepoets.com/ on creating another Persona. This is a great poetry website to check out and follow links to some diverse poetry and blogs on Mr Linky.

At present this persona style is a particular challenge to me with a story I am writing about the wild. I am caught between wanting to keep the creatures wild and not really speaking but also  with the need to create empathy for the struggles they have in our very current climate.

I hope the photos are of white tailed bumblebees. Please inform me if you think otherwise! The ones on the Christmas, Butchers Broom post were the slurred and blurred ones and I have been trying ever since.  With my friend Madeleine’s Fuji camera she took one of the bumblebee on a fallen leaf. The other day when it was sunny in the morning I found two bumblebees on the yellow daisies. They were struggling as the wind was getting stronger and then it started to rain again. One fell somewhere. I put out some sugar water in case they needed more food. I wonder if they did get back to their hive. As there were two they were possibly the worker bees. A queen will usually emerge in early February and look for food and begin to build up reserves and to lay their female worker eggs. I wonder here if these bees have emerged earlier because of the warm weather in December. Nature is so incredibly complex and so well adapted over millennia. At present these bees have certain skills to help them survive but as the climate is less predictable and more extreme there may be more problems foe even the common species.

A Flutterby of Butterflies. Summer 2015 in the Sierra Aracena.

This year from May to early July has not only been a feast of wild flowers for me to discover and try to identify but also of so many different butterflies. My working walk into my allotment area is bordered with wild scabious which I had decided not to cut back. I was rewarded with being able to walk back and forth through butterflies resting and sometimes arguing over key flowers. It seems to be the wild scabious that they love. With its long stems it bounces up and down as you pass. It also moves gently with the butterflies and the wind and this does not make for easy photographs. A lot have been blurred. After my working walk with the wheelbarrow and scythe I walked up to the Era in the early evening.here we can check on water levels in the deposit and decide whether to pump up more before I start to water. I was flabbergasted by the flutterby of so many more butterflies up there. But then there were so many more flowers. More field scabious, but also pink centuary, and yellow curry plant and many different grasses. The Era had been a levelled out stony threshing area for grain. Possibly used back in the 1920s. We had cleared it several years ago, strimmed and scythed. However, as there were so many flowers on this area last year I decided to do nothing in September. This year I have been rewarded with more flowers and a terrific range of butterflies, albeit with photos all mainly on the scabious. Apart from the swallowtail which seems to like the bushes near the house and the cement left over from the water butt. Hopefully, it will not be a casualty of human so called progress. We hope we are nearly done with any more awful cement mixing and will have a fairly sustainable way of life and comfortable house.   .

The era above the house. Once used for threshing and now seems to be a butterfly haven.

Painted Lady on Scabious.

Wall or Meadow Brown?

Clouded Yellow

Cardinal, large on Scabious!

Brimstone on Scabious

Probably a clouded yellow as can see the dots!

Scarce swallowtail.

Must be our favourite flower. Wild Field Scabious in Southern Spain. Sierra Aracena.

One butterfly missing from the photo shoot is the two tailed pasha . This beautiful butterfly needs the madrono, arbutus unedo, as a place for its eggs. There are plenty of these around the house but maybe this year there have been too many disturbances. There are also many more places for this bewitching butterfly and its peculiar desire for urine. One of my last photos some years ago were of it drinking my dog’s pee. And sorry can’t find that one to add to the collection. However quite pleased with the LUMIX camera and the details. But can’t get hold of the photo editing to crop it and show the eyes and delicate wings yet. Life here in the Sierra is far more comfortable with our solar power but we still haven’t solved our wifi access unless in a bar or the local library. But the library is a cool break as the heat of the summer is rising well into the mid 30s here.

Yellow is the colour of……..Botany studies in yellow

And with thanks to Opher’s World for nominating me for some blogging awards. Check Opher out as there are plenty of references to the great music of the 60s, Dylan, definitely and maybe Donovan! But Opher Goodwin has written some great books and one that he has shown extracts of is about Anthropocene Collapse. I love one of the futures he envisages where we as a species do survive and also keep 50% of the Earth wild. Here’s to some of the wild flowers at Finca Navasola. It’s always amazing where they pop up.

Tolpis and so much sun makes photo difficult. A lot of radiating light.

 

A vipers grass. But the lovely lemon flower rays often closed again within the bud.

Yellow is the colour of these wild flowers in the morning.
Yellow is the colour of the Thapsia, tall and elegant from dawn to dusk.
Yellow is the colour of the many, many daisy and dandelion types.
Yellow is the colour that vibrates so bright
Bringing more than just the sunshine’s light.
Bringing the joy of nature’s alluring fight
For the future, the next day, the next year, not the night.

A poem to capture the variety of flowers seen at Navasola this May and June. I had to start identifying through colour as this seemed easier than botanical keys and I had got stuck with 26,000 within the daisy family. Thankfully, we have various books and our own survey which helps narrow this down. But it is still a challenge as there were about five different kinds in yellow. As I was more confident with a range of other flowers I focused on trying to narrow down the daisy types. As we move into June some of this variety are already turning to seed but there are still more to feed the interest of the range of butterflies about. Another post or poem on those!

Perforate St John’s Wort

Thapsia, tall and elegant.

Thapsia, tall and elegant on the verge.

Leontodon Hispidus I think!

A wild euphorbia. Yellowish. With wasp with very waspish waist!

Curry plant and very aromatic

A lone yellow dahlia facing the bedroom window. At least some things grow well without too much water in my real rock garden.

 

A Wild Welcome Back! All alive and well at Navasola! Or on the Verges of a dilemma. When to cut back ? What is best to help improve biodiversity?

Where to start? We were back at Navasola and nature had begun its takeover. We were greeted with abundance but not of our own making. As I walked around though I was astounded by the variety of wild flowers. Wild poppies, wild irises joined the wild gladioli and all mainly around the overgrown verges of the main tracks. In the rock garden I looked for my additions and was greeted by dahlia and lilies growing up through a mayhem of other plants. The Melissa had grown strong and high too. And I saw a beautiful small purple flower I had not noticed before. This intrigued me till I walked over to the veggie field and there it was in great abundance. The vegetable garden was overgrown to at least waist height with this variety of vetch. There was a slightly squashed trail and I followed it to the fruit patch and where our friend had planted some tomatoes and peppers for us. The following night we ate the habas beans that had survived so at least had some home produce!

Wild roses over my magical path

Very vetching!

Wild poppy amid grown coriander

Priorities? Well, on with my botany as this was the time to really get to grips with all the extras that were on show. Over the other side of the Finca and up a more chalky hill there were carpets of pink. I had never seen so much of the silene last year. This and more beautiful toadflax. Unfortunately I didn’t take photos of this and when I returned to this South Eastern side a week later there were just a few remains of the pink spread.The weather had been hot and dry and this is the next stage for the Mediterranean flora. Grow well while you can and withdraw to reseed when it is hot and dry. During that week though I had been busy taming my veg patch with a scythe, and then having to tame hay fever which I hadn’t suffered from last year. There were so many amazing sculptures of different kinds of grasses. But there is only so much I can do and post. More on my attempts to identify the daisy and dandelion types and much more in future blogs. It seems the summer is the time to be out and to post about all the natural wonders. Another dilemma. Reading other blogs it is amazing the diversity around the world and so much to say and view at this time.

Wild iris

Phlomis

Olives blossoming

Pink centaury amidst a meadow of much more.

Navasola has quite a few wild meadows but a lot of the variety of wild flowers does seem to be appearing on the verges of paths and tracks. It was interesting to read an article in The Guardian about advice as to when to cut the public verges by roads in the UK. It seems that this is the last bastion of wild flower variety and good for pollinators. However a recent post by Jeff Ollerton seemed to suggest leaving the cutting to much later than July and August as there are so many pollinators that need those flowers then. And with changes in climate these creatures may need more time too. I have made a decision at the moment to do as little as possible in cutting down. I didn’t cut down the wild flower meadow on the Era last year, it is full of even more flowers now. However I did decide to reopen paths into the veg garden and try and use the vetch for mulching and compost. There are also areas where the grass might need to be kept back because of my allergy to it. I also get red skin if in contact with some forms of grass. Annoying as I want to be out and about. It seems to me that closely observing the interconnection between plants, insects and animal life is key to helping enable biodiversity. Any advice is always welcome and when I have more wifi I will try and explore some of those blogs which have such a wealth of information.

Daisy family….possibly a mayweed.

My favourite scarlet but blue pimpernels

Bladder campion, named on walk with N.

Small but adds to a very aromatic environment. Pitch.

Wild and overgrown verges.

Oat type grass: one of many rising high above.

Overgrown rock garden but with lily ready to come out.

Overgrown front garden but lavender, mint and winter jasmine all growing well too!

Wild gladioli, hop trefoil and a campanula all brightening up the building site!

Veg patch overgrown but strawberries and raspberries growing strong.

More common vetch!

Wild poppy, with flowering coriander and planted flowers behind.