I rarely bother with this thread, but there's a bit of a story here.
When I am in Crete I like to take advantage of the walking opportunities, I've walked from the north to the south coast several times, a trip that can take two or three days over the mountains. This summer I was getting into practice with a few 10 or 12 mile hikes, one of which took me up the side road to Kalliniktis, off the old highway from Rethymnon to Episkopi. A little way up the road a bridge crosses a stream which runs even in the hottest month when the whole island is parched. A little further on I found a sheep track that wound down to the plain beside the stream. An old stone house stands back from the river its doors long gone, its floor deep in sheep dung and with the skull and bones of an unfortunate ovine inhabitant lying in the dirt. Beside the stream plane trees stretch their roots into the bank, tearing up some of the limestone, and sheep droppings and footprints show that the animals are often here to drink.
I squatted on a stone by the river and watched as a crab scuttled across some rocks, crawled into the water and hurriedly hid under a rock. Damselflies fluttered up and down, with wings sparkling in electric blue, 40 or 50 buzzards wheeled across the blue sky - something I'd never seen before, as they usually hunt in pairs or family groups of three or four but apparently they will join forces if a field rich in worms is ploughed, offering an instant feast. Ant lion burrows dimpled the soft ground and a doodlebug whirled off to take refuge on a corn stalk. I got to my feet and, as I did so I realised that my body heat had awakened a nest of fleas - I've never seen anything like it, they were swarming out like ants but they bit and jumped exactly like fleas.
So much for the pastoral idyll, but the fleas didn't stop me getting some shots of the life in this sylvan corner of Greece:
