ornithology

In response to last week's post about carrying an owl to Athens (and Lawrence), one reader asked if I had personally seen any owls when I went to Athens. I must say that I did not, though after looking at my picture-cards, I realized that I did see a number of other birds during my travels through Hellas.

Firstly, my new friend Jake and I located a variety of birds in a zoo-like section of a public park in the centre of the city. There were no zookeepers in sight, but the animals were clearly fed and kept in a series of bird fences and cages. The most irascible of these fowl was this baby ostrich.


Jake and I were still delirious from the overnight ferry ride, and we just stood and looked at this bird and talked back to it, saying "aassstrich" repeatedly and giggling. I must have taken 20 pictures of the thing. It was so cute, yet so dirty.

There was also a flock of ducks running in circles, crazily. This might be one of my favorite pictures I took the whole trip.



On an excursion to Delphi, I saw these mythical ostriches in the museum.



As you can see, birds in a Greece are a tough, hard-to-tame bunch that don't take shit off of anybody. They will, however, take a shit on just about anybody, as this unfortunate fellow found out near Athens' Bathhouse of the Winds.


I'd hate to end this field report on such a sordid note, so here's a sweet song by the Beach Boys called "Little Bird."

Also, if there are any birds of prey reading this right now, it would be a huge help if you could swoop in my window and take care of that pesky mouse I saw in my apartment yesterday. Thanks a bunch!