Silky yellow sea poppy

Glaucium flavum - Yellow-horned poppy - peprin isfar

The yellow horned poppy is one of the few indigenous plants that flowers during the summer. It is a biennial or a short-lived perennial. The flowers are similar in size and structure to those of the common poppy but are yellow instead of red.

The seeds are formed in a long thin pod.

The yellow horned poppies is native to many parts of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. It was introduced in many parts of the United States and in some places it is considered as a weed.

In Malta it is most common along the north and east coast of Malta. It grows near the sea and is never found far inland. It prefers sandy areas but it can also be common in rocky areas especially in dust or soil-filled depressions.

In Maltese the yellow horned poppy is known as peprin isfar.

The leaves are thick and leathery, an adaptation to life close to the sea. The thick leaves store water in them and they are covered in a layer of wax which stops water from being lost through them.

The first flowers appear in late April, although it is not easy to find a plant in flower so early in the season as they start flowering in earnest in early June.

Like many other plants, the yellow horned poppy is both poisonous and medicinal. Every part of the plant is toxic and eating it can result in respiratory failure and even death. A clear yellow oil is obtained from the seeds. The plant’s main medicinal component is known as glaucine. This substance has properties similar to those of codeine. It is used in some countries as an antitussive but it can have side effects such as sedation, fatigue and can also bring about hallucinations. 

Thos article was published in the Times of Malta on 4 September 2013

Why cicadas only sing in summer

The continuous buzzing sound of the cicada is typical of Maltese summer days.

The cicada appears punctually during the second week of July. The larva digs its way out of the soil in it had lived for many years. It then climbs up the nearest vertical object which is usually the trunk of the tree of which it had been sucking juices. Occasionally instead of a tree it finds a wall or other stone structure.

Once it is high enough it expands slightly and this causes its external skeleton to break along a weak line at its back. It then pushes itself out of the exoskeleton and slowly walks away from it. This is a very vulnerable moment for the now adult insect. Its new external skeleton is still soft and in case of danger it is not able to fly.

The new external skeleton and the wings do not take long to harden and soon the male cicadas start singing while the females start their search for singing males.

When a pair of cicadas meets, they start courtship and then they mate. Courtship consists of repeated hugging and touching each other with their legs.

Soon after, the cicada lays its eggs in the soil close to the surface. The eggs hatch in late summer or early autumn in well enough time for the newly hatched larvae to dig their way further down into the soil where they will be spending the rest of their lives as larvae.

Once mating takes place and eggs are laid adult cicadas have no further need to stay alive and start dying. The number of singing cicadas has started to decrease and soon the last one will stop singing leaving behind a silence that indicates that the end of the summer season is fast approaching. 

This article was published in the Times of Malta on 28 August 2013.

Surviving in the heat of summer

Snails are dormant during the hot season

August was the fourth warmest since 1922. Both the average air temperature and the sea temperature were 2.3 °C above the norm.

Hot dry summers are typical of the Mediterranean region but the climate is not homogeneous throughout the region. 

The northern shores are cooler and wetter than the coast along the south and the east is much drier than the west.  As a rule of thumb botanist delineate the Mediterranean  as those areas where the olive tree can grow.

The Mediterranean region has a fairly rich biodiversity but living in the region is not easy for plants and animals unless they are adapted to live in the summer heat.

Plants need water and light to grow but in the Mediterranean the time of maximum light coincides with the driest months, thus plants cannot fully utilise the light for photosynthesis and growth.  Many plants survive by being annuals, drying up completely in the dry months and surviving until the next season as seeds. 

Others, although perennials, also dry up during the summer and remain alive as bulbs, corms or tubers. 

Other perennials reduce their activity to a bare minimum. Many of these, such as thyme,  are in the form of small bushes with small, dense leaves often with a waxy cover and aromatic leaves that help to reduce water loss.

Animals also find it difficult to survive the summer. Lack of vegetation makes it difficult for plant eaters to find food. Many die after laying eggs with the consequence that animals higher up in the food chain also find it difficult to eat. It is not only the lack of food that makes it difficult for animals to eat. The heat and lack of water increase their struggle. 

Malta’s only amphibian, the frog, and all land molluscs, including snails, aestivate in a safe place as they await  autumn’s first rains to become active again. (This article was published in The Times on 02.09.2012)

The oak eggar

The oak eggar is a beautiful large moth. It is seen in August and September mainly in Buskett and its surroundings. 

The males are red brown and fly during the day and many people mistake them for butterflies.

 Last Sunday, while watching the migration of raptors at Buskett I saw at least three oak eggars being caught and eaten by bee eaters, the brightly coloured migratory birds that specialise in hunting flying insects especially bees.

Female oak eggars are larger and paler than males and are nocturnal. It is said that females fly slowly at dusk dropping eggs on the vegetation below but I still have to see this interesting behaviour.

The eggs are laid on ivy which grows in abundance especially on the north-facing walls in Buskett. In Maltese the oak eggar is known as baħrija tal-ballut but it should be pointed out that despite its name, this species does not feed on oak, but is called so because its cocoon is shaped like an acorn.

The caterpillar is covered in brown hairs and has a black line between each segment on each of which there is a small tuft of white hair along the sides. I have seen and photographed the caterpillar on the leaves of the bramble at Wied il-Luq and also walking on the ground in the vicinity of this common plant.

The oak eggar belongs to the Lasiocampidae family of moths which has over 2000 species worldwide. These are usually large moths with feather-like antennae. The caterpillars are covered in long hair. Four species are found in the Maltese islands. 

This article was published in The Times on 22.0./2010

The sounds of Malta's summer

Cicada (Cicada orni)

This year, summer started later than usual and it seems that it is ending earlier as well. It has already rained and the temperature is going down but summer is not just sunny days and high temperatures. Summer, like every other season has its characteristic sounds and smells which together differentiate it from every other season.

The sound I associate most with a Maltese summer is that of the cicada the large insect that looks like a fly that spends days on end making a loud buzzing noise. 

During the night, when the cicada stops singing, the cricket takes over. This nocturnal insect used to be very common but like many other insects, especially those that live in agricultural areas, it has decreased in number probably because of the use of pesticides. 

Country people used to catch crickets and take them home to hear them sing. They caught them by placing a wet cloth on the ground in a field in which tomatoes were being grown. In the morning they collected the crickets from beneath the cloth and placed them in special cages or in a tin can.

Those walk in parts of the countryside where the bear’s breaches grows can also hear the sound of its seed pods as they crack open in the heat. The sound which resembles that of a small pistol is followed by that of its large seeds of falling on the large dry leaves of this plant.

Spanish sparrows gather in large trees to roost every evening but in summer their numbers and the noise they make reaches a peak as the population is augmented by the recently fledged birds.

In early July the first autumn migrants appear in the Maltese islands. The first birds to arrive are the waders which leave their breeding grounds in the far north immediately as soon as their short breeding season is over. They have to move south as weather at such latitudes is very unpredictable and it can snow even in August.

For those with trained ears the shrill call of another migrant bird, the kingfisher, becomes another common summer sound. Kingfishers arrive in August. They often perch on a rock along the coast waiting for a right-sized fish to swim by. It flies low over the water often making a short sharp whistle, chee, repeated two or three times. 

The most common sound nowadays is that of the ubiquitous car which can be heard even from Comino where no cars are present and because of this we often miss the beautiful natural sounds which were once part of the Maltese environment.

This article was published in The Times on 15.09.2010