Abandoned Land

Across our road the olive groves are beginning to turn into a wood with wild flowers, brambles and small oak and hornbeam saplings aging ground and slowly coming to dominating the few very old and shabby olive trees,branches broken by the snows of several winters, left to fall on the ground.

A neighbor in her 70s remembers a time when wheat was grown between the olives and the land was ploughed every autumn.Now young people are not interested in working on the land and this plot has been abandoned for 25 years.We joke that the only crop now is of cinghalie who root about in the soil creating crater like holes everywhere.The dogs hate them and the racket the dogs and wild boar make on some nights makes sleeping impossible.

But is this a bad thing? Today in early October I see clouds of butterflies everywhere feasting on the nectar of wildflowers brought to life after the drought of summer and now blooming in quantity. There are so many different types of insects it’s difficult to walk through the grass without stepping on them and a Praying Mantis seems to particularly resent me for trespassing on his territory.He is a straw colour unlike the ones up in the honeysuckle that are bright green. They must change colour like chameleons so that they blend in with their surroundings?

Foxes make their home in bramble thickets and creep out in the evening if the dogs are sleeping.Food for them is plentiful with so many rodents and the edible dormice.

Olives unsprayed and unpruned are full of birds,blue tits,great tits,nuthatches,woodpeckers owls warblers and maybe a Wryneck? Lizards conduct their territorial battles on the trunks,disappearing into holes and crevices when defeated.The large vivid green lizards prefer to hide away in the long vegetation as their bright colours attract predators.

Across our road the olive groves are beginning to turn into a wood with wild flowers, brambles and small oak and hornbeam saplings aging ground and slowly coming to dominating the few very old and shabby olive trees,branches broken by the snows of several winters, left to fall on the ground.

A neighbor in her 70s remembers a time when wheat was grown between the olives and the land was ploughed every autumn.Now young people are not interested in working on the land and this plot has been abandoned for 25 years.We joke that the only crop now is of cinghalie who root about in the soil creating crater like holes everywhere.The dogs hate them and the racket the dogs and wild boar make on some nights makes sleeping impossible.

But is this a bad thing? Today in early October I see clouds of butterflies everywhere feasting on the nectar of wildflowers brought to life after the drought of summer and now blooming in quantity. There are so many different types of insects it’s difficult to walk through the grass without stepping on them and a Praying Mantis seems to particularly resent me for trespassing on his territory.He is a straw colour unlike the ones up in the honeysuckle that are bright green. They must change colour like chameleons so that they blend in with their surroundings?

Foxes make their home in bramble thickets and creep out in the evening if the dogs are sleeping.Food for them is plentiful with so many rodents and the edible dormice.

Olives unsprayed and unpruned are full of birds,blue tits,great tits,nuthatches,woodpeckers owls warblers and maybe a Wryneck? Lizards conduct their territorial battles on the trunks,disappearing into holes and crevices when defeated.The large vivid green lizards prefer to hide away in the long vegetation as their bright colours attract predators.

In April an astonishing variety of wild orchids flower in shades of pink,purple, yellow, brown and white.The orchids must have lain in wait during all those years of ploughing and when the time was right they reappear. At the same time a nightingale arrives and begins calling as soon as dusk falls.

So although it’s abandoned it’s not unproductive and undoubtedly supports many more species then ever before.

In April an astonishing variety of wild orchids flower in shades of pink,purple, yellow, brown and white.The orchids must have lain in wait during all those years of ploughing and when the time was right they reappear. At the same time a nightingale arrives and begins calling as soon as dusk falls.

So although it’s abandoned it’s not unproductive and undoubtedly supports many more species then ever before.