The Lonely Frog of Kissos: The Sequel

Last month we published a heartfelt plea from Valerie and Fred Sellers about the lonely frog of Kissos. We are happy to report that this story seems to have resulted in fairytale ending! To recap: In April, Valerie and Fred reported that a tiny bright green frog had taken up residency in their half-filled swimming pool. It was apparently calling for a mate in a plaintive fashion (by making a noise rather like a quacking duck) without any success. This led to the question of whether ‘loveless’ was in fact the only one of its kind in the area, and whether it had in fact been imported on a bougainvillea plant that had been bought in a garden centre in Hania.

Shortly after we went to press Valerie and Fred sent us the following update: ”We are proud to announce that Loveless in Kissos is now the proud father of many tadpoles. Fred has spent all day siphoning the rainwater from the pool and trying to separate the tadpoles from mosquito larvae. He said it has been a very rewarding experience and it reminded him of his childhood days. Here are some photos of the proud parents. We ‘Googled’ them and found out that they are Common Tree Frogs of Crete. Loveless has decided to use our pergola because of the absence of trees in our garden and one picture shows him using the suction pads on his feet to climb our glass door whilst trying to catch moths at night. As you can see they are the same size, shape and colour to be well camouflaged in a bougainvillea. The babies are all doing well.” Aaah, makes you go all misty eyed….!

Taiwanese Wind Farms and Goats

Any story about wind farms and goats is likely to attract our attention here at the Bugle. We have both wind farms and goats on Crete, wind farms tend to attract controversy, goats less so, possibly. Initially we were rather apprehensive about how to present this sad tale that we found on the BBC online website. After long and careful debate, we decided that it was best to err on the side of caution and to just tell it as it is.

A Taiwanese farmer claims that a large number of his goats have died from exhaustion due to noise generated from a nearby wind farm. Before the wind farm was built on the archipelago of Penghu - some four years ago - local farmer Kuo Jing-shan was the proud owner of about 700 goats. However, shortly after the giant turbines were installed his animals started die off at an alarming rate, and he now only has about 250 goats left.

Penghu is notorious for its howling winds and the stronger the wind, the louder the noise from the turbines. This appears to have disturbed the goats. Kuo Jing-shan explained: “The goats looked skinny and they weren’t eating. One night I went out to the farmhouse and the goats were all standing up; they weren’t sleeping”. A representative from the Council of Agriculture said that it was plausible that abnormal noises from the wind farm were affecting the sleeping and feeding patterns of the goats, which in turn was causing their untimely demise. The power company - Taipei - dispute this (what a surprise!), though they are offering to pay some of the relocation costs if Kuo Jing-shan chooses to move elsewhere (no compensation for the loss of goats, though). Here, the jury is still out on this one. But we would obviously love to hear any similar stories from our readers that would help to shed light on this issue!

Ducking and Diving

This story is for everyone who may occasionally find themselves expressing a slightly, er, jaundiced view about Greek bureaucracy and / or government officials. It’s also a salutary reminder to the British among us (expatriate or otherwise) that we should be very careful when pointing the finger at different national practices. Or to put it another way, ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’. For those of you who don’t know this already, one of the burning issues in the UK press at the moment is the matter of Members of Parliament (MPs) and creative accounting. The Daily Telegraph, a national newspaper recently published a list of expense claims that MPs had submitted over the last year. There were the usual claims for mortgages which had already been paid off, redecorating, hair straighteners and the like. But first prize goes to Sir Peter Viggers, Tory MP for Gosport. He (allegedly!) tried to charge the UK tax payer £30,000 for gardening, including £500 for manure and £1,645 for a floating island for his pet ducks. Sir Peter, when eventually tracked down apologized profusely and is also quoted as saying: “I paid for it myself [the floating duck island] and in fact it was never liked by the ducks and is now in storage”….