A sunny day! From the atmospheric Preveli Monastery, with its interesting double-fronted iconostasis and history of warrior monks, we spent the day ambling back along the road.
The soundtrack to our morning was made up of the buzzing song of Eastern Black-eared Wheatear, the Yellowhammer-lite of Cretzschmar�s Bunting, the Kestrel-like keekeekee of Alpine Swifts and the lovely sound of a Mediterranean summer coming from a group of about 30 Bee-eaters (just the European norm, this time!) gathered in the valley. A pair of Southern Skimmers, the male a lovely powder blue, were hanging around a damp roadside ditch, while two species of shieldbug were sat side by side, the black and red striped Graphosoma lineatum next to the orangey Cretan endemic Graphosoma creticum.
For the botanists, the highlight was simply the profusion of flowers: road verges and hillsides were covered in flowers, with something interesting at almost every step: tall yellow spikes of Verbascum macrurum; the small flowered Malva cretica; the squat, purple Centaurea raphanina and the nearby �caged flower� of Atractylis cancellata; a grove of Cretan Palm Phoenix theophrasti, one of just two species of palm native to Europe and the only one that forms a 'proper' palm tree; and a single elegant spike of Anacamptis papilionacea ssp alibertis, yet another Cretan endemic (as if we needed more!).
Preveli Monastery
Alibertis' Butterfly Orchid
Graphosoma creticum. Because every trip deserves a handsome shieldbug or two
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