Spring in irati forest, The life explosion

Scilles blooming  in late april

Recently  the snow disappeared, and plants are quick to sprout with the high temperatures.
In the lower parts of the valleys beeches already have their new leaves of light green, while ash trees, walnut trees and oaks take it a bit more quiet.
Those same trees also lost leaves later in the fall. If you go to sleep later, then you wake up later.



 Beech forest flowers called prevernals plants need to rush to make their life cycle before the shade of beech leaves kill them. So even with some snow can start to sprout  and do all their cycle in a month and a half. Most of them are bulbs, like  asturiensis ,bulbocodium and varduliensis daffodils already emerged in April, although poet´s daffodil (narcissus poeticus) will come out in June, They are also bulbs like the asphodels (Asphodelus albus) the dogtooth violet (Erythronium dens-canis ) and others as  the Pyrenean squill, (Scilla lilio- hyacinthus) the upper and following pictures.

Pyrenean squill. One who dares to be different from the crowd violet.

Over the next three weeks, large areas of the beech forest will be covered with these flowers, creating an spectacular colorful, which joined with the leaves of the beech trees that will sprout in the coming days, give us an excellent opportunity to make some of the best picture that We can  made of a beech forest
They are also  blooming anemones (Anemone nemorosa), the golden Liver (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium), or Spurge laurel (Daphne laureola)

After the Pyrenean Squills will be replaced on the fringe of the forest by others such as foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea), gentians (acaulis, Verna, in the few areas lutea), etc

The last liverleaves of the year

Spurge laurel (Daphne lauréola)

Snakehead (Arum maculatum)

 Opening Fern

But not only Pyrenean squills warn us that something is moving in the forest;
Mammals signals are evident wherever we look. From nibbled Squills to badger droppings, deer, roe deer, hare, wild boar, etc ..
The scratch places of  the Roe deers are very curious. Males remove vegetation around a beech small, and rubbed against her so that even damage the bark is scraped. In this way,. others roe deer look and smell, that this territory belongs to someone.

Roe deer scratch place.

Roe deer horn marks

Also insects begin to move, encouraged by the development of their food plants, especially  caterpillars.
These are some kind of noctuidae or Erebidae, moth larvae, which feed on these leaves megaphorbic plants that live only with very high humidity. Here they are eating the  Adenostiles alliariae, that will blossom into June- July. inside the forest.

Birds do not keep quiet, and We can hear the repetitive chanting of finches or Song thrush(turdus philomelos) and sporadic different types of woodpeckers.

Here We have the unfortunate aspect that leave a dead tree, but standing, after to be used as 5 stars restaurant where birds find different menu larvae (Cerambycidae, bark beatles ..) appropriate for each species. Nuthatchs ( Sitta europaea) also come here to eat something

Feed holes of woodpeckers

White backedwoodpecker female eating on the ground

This female woodpecker eating and was rummaging among the leaves for 10 minutes. The photo has taken two weeks before, when I did a tour for a bird watcher. It is by far because we do not approach much to not bother. In fact, while we watched with telescope, she did not notice our presence.
Well, this is what I observed in a space of 1 hour and a half and I thought you might be interested.

Living in a valley in the Pyrenees, although it has many disadvantages, it also has its advantages, as can be in these sites only 5 minutes from home.
Here the last photo of another mammal, trying to leave no trace in the forest, just in your emotions.


If you want to know these places can write to: itarinatura@itarinatura.com

May 16, 2016

Beeches have taken all the leaf and the dimly lit in the forest is full. Yesterday had been a foggy day and it seemed that at any time magical fairies court could appear as something normal.
Ramsons (Allium ursinum) begins to replace the flower of squill, and in the meadows the Gentiana acaulis start the flowering..

Añadir leyenda

Gentiana acaulis

Ramsons (Allium ursinum)

mysteries of the past of Irati forest and ..how long will leave the leaves?

Even if one takes a long time walking and watching, we always leave things to see.
Recently a oldman of my village, Orbaizeta, I told me that some  years ago He founded like "stone igloos" in a praeries area where he had walked all his life, but never, until that day he had noticed them.
  In the  Aralar range (Navarre and Gipuzkoa )exist "Arkuek" which would be the same structures,and the knowlegde about that is quite poor.
A good link about that (spanish):

http://www.basozaina.com/2014/03/los-arkuek-de-el-aralar-primera-parte.html

"Arkue" intact

I finally went with him today (I prefer not to mention his name if he doesnt said me the opposite) and he show  me the place. Certainly it is away from busy paths, and is well camouflaged.
It has a hole against the rock of the bottom, which probably serve for make fire, and due the form of the hole, prevents rain or snow can enter. Its orientation to the south, protected from the prevailing winds, is perfect.

On the right, there is another one, but unfortunately due to a slide some years ago, now is destroyed.
He does not remember any mention of these structures, and certainly is nothing similar nearby.

Capping entry

The fact that for a person who knows "almost" perfect place, with a lot of experience in those places, have gone unnoticed, and they are practically sealed, making them very valid elements for a future investigation into its origins and use.
Excuse me, for that reason, that does not give more information about its location, until they have been investigated, of which I'll try to take care giving notice to the Aranzadi Science Society, which I am a membership.

Another curious thing is the following picture:

Hunting tramp

At first glance there seems not to be more than beech trees, and a rock rising on the right. As we can not see in the photo, I will comment you that in the rocks on the right, there is one small way to a closed sinkhole.
If you look deeper, you can see that there is a horizontal row of rocks, in the middle  of the picture, and on the Left, another one rising at an angle of 90 °.

They were once stone walls, whose purpose, like elsewhere in Europe, were to contain wild animals in prehistoric hunting pressured from above, and animals went running to the sinkhole on the right, where stones, arrows and spears thrown from above, kill them.

This whole area has abundant prehistoric remains in the form of dolmens, prehistoric funds hut, stone circles, and even menhirs. Megalithic areas like Ilarrita on Mount Okabe (Irati Behe Nafarroa) and  Azpegi in the  Irati of Aezkoa valley, are respectively the first and second longest in the Pyrenees.

Finally, I want to show you two photos taken with 7 days difference between April 30 and May 7, from Ibañeta (Santiago´s way).
As you can see, although not to be Irati forest, this is a natural continuation of a forest that does not know place names,and  the real extention of the forest is much higher than the 17,100 hectares of Irati. We can see Orreaga Roncesvalles  lower right first, and farn away Auritz / Burguete. The mountains to the left are the South of  Aezkoa valley.
More words are unnecessary ...

A winter day, somewhere in Navarra

This time I will not say where I've been, because I am going to show you 2 species in danger of extinction, but I think that will be many people with the tracks that I going to give you, who will recognize the place.
If someone  want to visit it, I'll be happy to do so.

Nummulites

Lets begin with the composition of the rocks of the place; as you will see, they are full of fossils of some 55 million years ago and  marine origin. They are called Nummulites, and is a composite Latin word (nummus / coins, litos / stone). If one sees flat, they look like coins with concentric circles, but if it turns out that the bug (not an animal but a unicellular be called protist) was on side when fossilized, or broke, then they are more elliptical.
They are foraminifera,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foraminifera a kind of macroplacton, swimming in the waters of the prehistoric sea that disappeared when the Iberian peninsula was built against the European continent.
Among its concentric circles, sprouted a number of something similar to a little hairs with which they fed.
The main of the limestone of  the  Pamplona/Iruña basin, looking to the south, are made with skeletons of trillions of these beings (Alaitz and Sarbil ranges, pilatos balcony, above Urederra fountainhead, ..)
I have found this very good link about these things:(in spanish)

http://www.geoparquepirineos.com/contenidos.php?niv=&cla=_2OA1CD0KM&cla2=_2OB01HU8N&cla3=_3MD0KXM4T&tip=3&idi=1

The second clue corresponds to the river that flow in this area. Its waters have been carving in the rock several circular holes called potholes. Sometimes,  a stone  is trapped by the current in an imperfection of the rock, as a small hole, and with the water movement this stone begin Smoothing and getting bigger the hole until it can reach several meters in diameter.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmita_de_gigante

Pothole with the dead trout

In this small pothole beside the river which coming rise due to the snowfall of yesterday, a poor troutfound the death. I do not know if the rise would have pushed into the pothole which later it could not get away, or died of old age after a full life, but the truth is that was recently died there. Gills were still red, but the skin was beginning to fade.
I put my hand to hand as size reference.

A few meters we can see a small seam between two limestones  of crystallized calcite. When these rocks were forming, hot water and great pressure fill of lime circulated through a crack, until calcite began to accumulate on the walls of the crack, filling them and sealing like cholesterol in our arteries. This procedure is the same when we found a vein of copper, silver, gold and many other minerals, but in that case, would be other kinds of rocks which would have to look not in sedimentary rocks, but in metamorphic, and almost always attached to quartz.

Calcite crystals 

Latest clues!
It is the Bearded Vulture foraging territory, abundant colonies of griffon vulture, and now in winter, a rare bird jewel, the walcreeper (Tychodroma muralis)!

Bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus)

Griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus)

Wallcreeper (Tychodroma muralis)

This beautiful Wallcreeper was takin benefit of the sun's rays to eat the few bugs that appear in the heat rock or  refuge in the numerous cracks and holes.

So, although it seems that few things to see in winter, actually in all seasons there are many things to see

Oaks,firs and beeches for the old boats structures

Pedunculate oak(Quercus robur) in Etxarri Aranaz (Sakana,Navarra)

If you have  been in the Irati forest you maybe watch  that mostly  is a beech forest (Fagus sylvatica) , and  in a part of the Salazar / Zaraitzu valley,and inSoule / Xiberua valley ,we have also white fir (Abies alba), in the southwestern limit distribution of Europe.
What fewer people know is that until the nineteenth century , much of the south sides of the mountains , were mainly groves of pedunculate oak (Quercus humilis), and in acid soils of  Aezkoa valley,sessile oak (Quercus petraea ), and often hybrids of both species.
Nearby from Orreaga / Roncesvalles , we have some specimens of  pedunculate oak (Quercus robur ) more adaptated to oceanic climate .

Why were substituted for the beech ?

The economic value of oak has always been higher than the beech . With oak  timber, is posible to do all the things that we can do  with the beech , but  for its high strength and durability, is used for the construction of wooden structures too, while with the beech , as the Spanish proverb say : " Use beech when to dont have another thing" y is usually used as a cheap alternative , and never for structures , at least traditionally .
Beech  was used to make wood tiles , called in these valleys , in basque" oholak ", but when they could , oak was used, as the old roof of the old church of Orbaizeta, until it was replaced by zinc tiles .
Oaks growth  slower than  beeches , and if we also add that oaks have been cut whitout the minimum conditions for their good regeneration , we have that pioneer species, as  the pine(Pinus sylvestris), or the beech in our area, have replaced the old inhabitants.

 Centennial oak in  Irati forest( Mendilatz mountain,  Aezkoa valley)

Quercus petraea inTxangoa(west side of Irati)

In the history of the weapons factory of Orbaizeta(XVIII century) one of the biggest of Europe,  appear the complaint that the spanish soldiers of this factory put to two neighbors of Orbaizeta,whe they were cutting an oak on Mount Mozolotxiki , located beside the Irabia reservoir water.
Today is a magnificent beech , with a few oak trees on its southern slope .
The residents to the Aezkoa valley had  forbidden for the Spanish crown  cut wood from their own forests , due to a document signed between the  Aezkoa  valley and theSpanish crown , which in the late eighteenth century yielded the forests to produce coal for the owens of the munitions factory .
The Aezkoan people , who did not understand spanish ,because their language was basque, apparently they trusted  in a priest and a teacher to sign the document , clearly better to the crown, and ruinous to Their.

Have been also used in the Irati forest the beeches to make oars to the navy. Until the twentieth century was a oars workshop inOtsagabia (Salazar/Zaraitzu valley) , and white firs were  used for masts of ships, due to  his great righteousness .

White firs(Abies alba) in Irati forest of Salazar Valley

 But the oaks also had a very important use in shipbuilding, and in Navarre were oak forests expressly used  to get special parts for different types of boats, which they were  very well paid .

When you should to make a curved piece of wood, you can do by two ways:  joining several pieces of wood to get the bend, or creating that curve with a branch of a tree with ropes and selective pruning. Do not miss this fantastic link (later come back here , ha, ha ! )

http://bertan.gipuzkoakultura.net/23/caste/13.php

With the first one , the joints of the piece will be weak points where it can break , while the second one break will be much harder . Basque vessels were known to be very resistant , and therefore were often sold to other countries. It is the case of a ship that sank in the Severn River in 1465 from New port (Wales ) and thanks to the analysis of dendrochronology has been known that the wood was from the Sakana Valley in Navarre. ( More information at  www.jauzarrea.com)
In the wikipedia we can read that the ship was portugese, but itz was  a theory because it seemed the merchandise was  from Portugal.
Source: (prof..Nigel Nayling,Archaeologist,University of Wales,Trinity Saint David, School of Archaeology, history and anthropology.Lampeter,Ceredigion, Wales.)

Today we can see many of these trees until the twentieth century were used to draw different pieces of wood, which were carved in situ and  transported by oxen to the coast of Gipuzkoa, where specialized carpenters  fit them in the structure of the boat. 

Mikel, from Albaola foundation showing one of the pieces.

The Albaola foundation is currently building with wood from Irati (Keel beech and fir masts) and from Sakana valley(with oak for the rest of the structure), an exact copy of a fifteenth century boat called Nao  San Juan, a whaler which was found underwater in Newfoundland (Canada) in a very amazing conservation, and will serve to represent Donostia / San Sebastian as the capital of European culture in 2016, which will navigate to European ports representing city​​

http://www.albaola.com/pdf/nao_SANJUAN-EUSK-CAST.pdf

 Is not a coincidence the right angle of the right branch.

Among the threat of invasion of American oak, of fastest growing and introduced in the twentieth century to replace our old oak, we can still see stunning examples of hundreds of years and several meters of circumference in the oak forest of northern of Navarre (Orotz Betelu ,Aezkoa, Ultzama, Baztan ..), and in this case, I would highlight  Altsasu / Alsasua and Etxarri Aranaz for its high number of specimens and their old age. 

Members of the "oak commission" for scientific and tourism development  of the oaks forests in Navarre 

Imagine the size of this giant!

This really is a great top!

Some are hollow and fit several people.

Fantastic oak tinder, 5 or 6 years old, depending on the rings.

Mysterious and eerie Irati forest

This time we will try to see with the eyes of imagination, a girl or a boy, rather than only as adults. That way maybe we can feel the presence of Basajaun, or the lord of the forest in the Basque mythology, who lived in Irati, witches (in AezkoaSpanish  inquisition burned  7th), or the Lamias, inhabiting rivers and  water ponds. 
The fog makes us easier than in full sun.
Recommended Soundtrack: A Night on Bald Mountain, Mussorgsky 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Au43sl-bs

Imagine walking through the forest in this fog. If this image we saw it in a movie, expect to hear a soundtrack disquieting, and we would get nervous waiting to see a zombie, (why I would be seeing "the walking dead"?!) White Walker as Game of Thrones, or perhaps witch House of Hansel and Gretel ..

The ground is labyrinthine and sometimes rugged and requires strenuous detours. There are numerous chasms through which the water disappears underground.
Impossible orient with the sun.
Why not have paid more attention to Bear Grylls?

The  first dead appears

In this rock we can see  fossils of toucasias that they indicate the  ancient origin under the ocean of the forund when  this forest grows today.
120 million years ago this land was a coral reef  (Urgonian period) whose petrified remains forest feeds. (Sinister laugh)

Aliens in Irati

We are now in an ancient battlefield among the oaks and beeches, where we can see that the beeches, more agiles, end up killing the oaks, ancient inhabitants of Irati, to taking away the light they need, and not happy with that also grow inside, often while still alive, to feed their decaying matter!.

You shall not deny me that looks like a squid, with his eye and tentacles!

The old hermit

Old birch

We came to a forest glade on a high, and we think we'll be safer here our fears, but one of the elders of the forest, half dead half alive, looks like yelling at the entrance to Dante's Inferno: Abandon all hope!

The Catacombs

 Burrows of field mice

The floor is full of holes where underground activity frenetic is guessed.
As this spring rained a lot, have had many more beechnuts and acorns oak trees more than usual, so that the rodents had more food, and have reproduced a lot.
Only in this little picture are 5 holes, and even though many of them belong to the same burrow, not often see so many. This abundance of mice within the forest could be causing that wildcats are almost not see these months in meadow  hunting voles, as is normal.

The... hope ?

As with any thriller or scary, the ending is somewhat ambiguous

 Browsed on Scillas 

We see that the flowers begin to appear from under the leaves, and it seems that the forest will be filled with flowers, which  the atmosphere will be softtened, but ... hungry animals roam the forest in search of food!
This is due to deers and roe deers mainly, which are quick to eat the first outbreaks of these prevernal plants, after a winter of scarcity.
The real spring denouement , with you in alive, in a few weeks!