Saturday, October 27, 2018

Rafina River: Environmental education hotspot in Athens

Part of the Rafina High School Environmental Education group, one of their teachers and Yours (R)

October, 27th 2018. Rafina River. 25 Km East of Athens.

I spend a lot of time out-doors and sometimes its nice to do this with friends, family and students. The Rafina High-School has an ambitious new project to study the river and to explore ways to make society care about it. Today I worked with the students: Themistocles, Mariana, Lambrini, Georgia, Tasos and Filippa. I tried to make a lesson out of it with the help of local teachers and the guidance of naturalist-biologist local river expert, Antonis Lazaris. You can learn so much with Antonis! So the sun was shining, the waters were cool and clear- it was a little piece of heaven. Nothing less. 

I'll try to do this soon again. 


Its usually the teacher's fault! Mr. Antonis Lazaris, high school biology TEACHER extraordinaire! 
On the sandbar at the river-mouth. 
Antonis told me that the kids need to "get in the water"...Here we watched a school of fish, learned about algae (filamentous and Enteromorpha), saw herons foot-prints, darters & damselflies ("livelloules"), mudflat patterns, Salicornia shrublets, little egrets ("Lefkotsikniades"). And we also talked about Zen Buddism.  


Team walking above the busy Rafina bridge. yes...its Wilderness inside the city!

A bank of Arundo donax reed-cane (L) and...a beautiful date palm reminds us we are in the Mediterranean for sure! What a luxurious "archontiko" place inside the city. Should this not be highlighted as a life-line for recreation?

Antonis spotted some ducks, then we identified wagtails and other birds, later someone saw a mouse. We talked about habitat diversity, shelter and cover for aquatic life. Cattail reeds ("Psathia") and their wind-dispersal. We found a Tettigonid cricket! Wild things were happening!

Most of it was "clean waters" at least on this day. Some point-source pollution flows in through gutters-pipes though ...(so it is periodicially polluted). 

Concrete bank near point-source pollution inflow. So sooooo different then the natural bank and natural riparian "buffer zone". But soon downstream the river self-heals. 

Upside-down binoculars function as a microscope! Many plants on the rich riparian zone: Castor Oil Plants, Solanum, Oxalis ("Ksinithra"), first-flowers of Sinapis ("Vrouves"). 

Frog! A small one, hiding in the algae.... There were 3 or four others too. Water is already quite cold for them...(all will soon settle for the short winter).

Upstream of the upper footbridge. Arundo donax thicket. Jungle-like...food for elephants! ...Nowadays here dwells the Black-Crownend Night Heron ("Nychtokorakas") - we saw one.

Re-discovery the huge chaste tree bush (Ligaria): one of the few native species in the river's riparian zone. Smells so distinctive...

What is it?

A special kind of algae, a Charophyte! Rare.

Walking back. We explored from 10:30 to 1:30...Non-stop and totally enthused. 

Lost world, threatened landscape.... from the busy bridge. Why don't more people care? 
A a final reminder. The river and Rafina in the 1950s. (Photo from an the archive of the Doctor, Stathis Dimitrakos).