Italian Wildlife

A scream pierces the siesta heat haze.  It's coming from the pool area.  Adrenal glands fire into action and I'm on my feet spilling the book that lay on my face.  As I get to the door my senses are on full alert, eyes sweeping the terrace and pool in a trouble diagnostic pattern.  Issy and Will are both alive, sitting in the shade looking at Moll quizzically, there's no blood anywhere.  Adrenal glands downgrade the threat hazard to amber. 

"Ugh!  That's disgusting!"  she screams.  As I bend over to look at what she's pointing at I see it's a frog taking shelter in the top corner of pool just where the water lips the stone edge of the filter system.  He's almost entirely hidden by the ledge minding his own business and no doubt cooling down from the intense heat.  Unfortunately eagle eyes has spotted him and has decided that frogs in any bit of water anywhere near where she is paddling is not acceptable.  She's fallen into the horror movie trap of being so terrified she's compelled to lean even closer to eye the frog almost invisible in the shadows.

"Moll it's only a frog, he's just cooling down for a moment, he's not doing you any harm…"

"Ugh!  Disgusting!" she cuts in not listening to me.  Is that another thing you do when terrified?  Not listen to your dad?  I can either try and fish him out or persuade Moll to ignore him and he'll climb out perfectly happily on his own steam.  Moll backs away scrunching up her face in disgust.  Can't think why we thought she'd need the drama classes she's booked into once the new term starts back in England.  The frog edges himself out with his back to the side wall, climbs up onto the poolside and then hops nonchalantly off to find some shade under Will's pool chair.  He's not as excited as I am about the frog's progress as he's too busy nuking storm troopers in his Star Wars  DS game.

In the evening, the pool attracts a sine wave of swallows combing the surface of the water for an evening aperitif.  I can't work out if they're thirsty or hungry as there's a good concentration of bugs littering the surface.  There are too many to count with any degree of accuracy as they're in perpetual motion until they take their bow with the sun dipping behind the western hills.  And then it's the turn of the bats in the twilight strafing the water for a drink, which I think is an incredibly clever feat of sonar navigation as they're coming in at pace.  And then the chirrup of cicadas reaches into your consciousness.  Thick, noisy and yet strangely comforting.  We had some in the pine tree above our tent just north of Rome which Vick insisted were birds until she conceded that most birds would be tucked up snugly in their roosts at 11 o'clock at night notwithstanding the racket coming from the camp entertainment area.

Gecko-watching was a popular sport in Sorrento.  Walking anywhere in the campsite was rewarded with a rustle of leaves, twigs or pine needles followed by a flash of green, scurrying of tiny feet and accompanying tail.  What is it about geckos that instantly puts a smile on your face and reduces you to pointing and yelling, "Look! Geck!", like a demented idiot?

Whilst the ants busied themselves around us in all our campsites, it was the impressive wasp population we shared the villa pool with that were arguably the most impressive.  Not one of them misbehaved all week even with Will and Moll wandering around barefoot through the 'drink zone'.  The drink zone was a small area, about a metre square, just by the top of the steps where the kids would get out of the pool.  Little water puddles collected in the indentations of the terrace stones, which the wasps happily arrived at, drank their fill and then flew off over the villa to a hidden colony in the woods surrounding.  At any one moment there were a dozen hovering about like helicopters landing on an aircraft carrier.  During the siesta, without any pool activity, they were forced to land on the pool surface - a precarious operation.  Losing their balance meant an epic struggle to free their wings from the extra weight.

But the creatures I felt most sorry for were the six ants that emerged from our camping gear back in England and shivered about the kitchen floor when exposed to the shock of the high summer temperature UK-style before being summarily squished by Will's flip flops.  Or maybe putting them out of their misery was a blessing in disguise.