Adapted from an article by Demeter László in the Csiki Hirlap newspaper 21 Nov 2008
Every land has its specialties that the inhabitants can be proud of. However, there are lands that nature supplied with more specialties than the usual amount. It’s good if we know about them, to be able to enjoy them, and to use them wisely. It is well known that Csik has the most ice hockey teams per capita, that it is one of the coldest inhabited areas of the country, the most mineral water springs and only crater lake. I would like to complete this list with some less well known natural treasures. Some of them are already known (but not widely known) and there are some novelties too. Ice age relics The Csik basin is the southern distribution limit of some plant species in Europe. These are species that are thought to have remained since the time of the Ice Age in the cool bogs of the area. Such are two dwarf birch species, Betula humilis, B. nana at Szentkirály and Verebes. B. humilis went extinct from near Csikszereda, a violet species Viola epipsila at Verebes and the marsh saxifrage Saxifraga hirculus at Szentkirály.
Marsh saxifrage (Saxifraga hirculus) © Demeter László Birds of hay meadows Szentsimon has the record for the most stork nests in a village, and the densest stork population. This can be attributed to two things: there are a lot of wet meadows, and people use these as hay fields in small plots. Lower Csik has the densest corncrake population in Romania. This internationally rare bird is a specialist of tall grass areas, and it prefers the wettest sedgy hay meadows. Because the EU lists it in the highest conservational category, in a few years the farmers who have corncrake habitats on their land and they use corncrake friendly agricultural practices (late and less mechanized mowing), will receive significant financial aid. We can only hope that there will be people who will apply for this aid, because the presence of the corncrake is dependent on traditional farming. Animals of bogs and temporary ponds Csik and Gyergyo have the highest breeding numbers of snipe. In fact we proved the nesting of this species in Romania by finding a nest at Verebes. The main breeding area of this species is in Northern Europe. Here it is a specific nesting bird of tussocky bogs. In springtime we can observe its spectacular nuptial flight at the bogs: males spread their external tail feathers in free fall and this creates a sound similar to a sheep’s call. Here is the largest moor frog population in Romania (at Delne). This frog species has a northern Eurasian distribution, Southeast Transylvania being its southern limit in Europe. The males of this species turn blue in the breeding season. Due to its rarity it is strictly protected at national level.
Moor frogs (Rana arvalis) © Demeter László The town of Csikszereda has the only known occurrence of the spring fairy shrimp (Tanymastix stagnalis) in the country. This is a relatively common Western European species, but the only known occurrence in Romania is the backyard of some houses at the meeting of the Meadow Street and Hargita Street. Unfortunately the site has been built on recently so this species can be considered extinct here at present. Csik has the largest numbers of the green fairy shrimp Chirocephalus shadini (in Lower Csik) and of the Hanko fairy shrimp Drepanosurus hankoi (in Csicso). In Romania both species are limited to the mountain basins of the Szekelyland. The Hanko shrimp has 12 known habitats in Csik, of which one has already disappeared due to construction, and the rest are also vulnerable.  Green fairy shrimp (Chirocephalus shadini) © Demeter László Here is the only known distribution of a calanoid copepod species in Europe, except the Belgrat forest north of Istanbul where the species was observed for the first and last time in the 1930s. Records in danger? It has to be admitted that some of these records are due to the fact that the flora and fauna of Romania and the Szekelyfold is not yet known well enough. For example the moor frog record of Delne could be taken by Rety Forest if the numbers there were counted. Probably we will need to share the corncrake and snipe record with Gyergyo when we have more detailed data from that area. However, the most important danger for these records are ourselves, the inhabitants of Csik, if we don’t pay attention to them and we destroy them before we would profit from them. Profit in this case means financial gains through tourism and agri-environmental schemes, but also the value of the joy which the observation nof these rarities provides us and our children. It would be very important that our decision makers make their decisions based on the advice of researchers, so that our rarities do not fall victims of individual interests. Csik records
© Demeter Laszlo 2008 |
