Some Cretan Wildlife.

It's been a bright and windy day today. Perfect for drying the washing which has been ironed and put back on the bed. 

After a rough night (I need to divide heavy shopping between smaller bags so I don't strain my ribs lifting them out of the car) I've had a quiet day at home. I spent a fair proportion of time in the kitchen preparing food for when our friends come to visit. Normally I try to spend as little time cooking as possible (without using UP foods) but I'm culturally hard-wired to make sure any visitors have plenty of the best home cooked food I can manage. Which is why I try and plan and get things in the freezer in advance. And of course I prefer to spend time with visitors rather than stressing in the kitchen.

I also did some gardening and even sat outside in the afternoon (with our neighbour roaring up and down on his ride on mower cutting the grass on the cliff-top.)

Sunset last night.

 

And for the last time, more photos from Crete. This time of some of the local wildlife.

A rather blurry shot (because it was high above) of a griffon vulture seen when we went up to Lato in the mountains.

Closer to home, under the roof tiles of the neighbouring property, we watched a northern wheatear bringing large insects to its young. The next day they had gone but this prime residence did not stay empty for long as the following day a pair of sparrows moved in.

Down below in the garden Peter spotted this locust perched on the leg of an abandoned table. Luckily it was only the one and not a swarm.

One evening, as we sat on our usual bench by the sea waiting for the Spinalonga lights to turn on I realised that what at first looked like a small stick was actually a millipede making its way up and over the low wall in front of us and then disappearing over the other side. The there was another, and another. four or five in all. This only happened on one occasion. The only information I can find is that millipedes will follow scent trails to get to their food (decaying matter). The one in the photo was on our terrace and like most of the ones we saw was the diameter but half the length of a pencil.

Stranger looking was this four inch long long headed/ oriental grasshopper which I saw while we were walking on the island. Crete has 378 species of grasshopper, wow!

Apart from a shed skin we did not see any of four species of snake on Crete only one of which is mildly venomous. I couldn't persuade Peter that this meant we weren't in danger whenever we went walking. The only creature to worry about would have been a scorpion but we didn't see any of those either.