Allegiances

Crows don't seem to be very popular birds with a lot of humans.  I'm not sure whether it is their colour, the sound they make, or their intelligence that makes them avian non grata, but it tells you how humans think when (in English) they choose to call a gathering of crows a 'murder'.

A murder of crows.

My humans seem to be rather partial to crows and my early blog reflects this in the record of observations on their efforts to entertain the crows that claimed our backyard as part of their territory. (search 'crows' and you will get a flavour).

If bird species had supporter scarves (like football teams) then F's would definitely be black - which is rather convenient.  In the hierarchy of avian teams she will back crows first.  All other teams get support and respect (read 'food and nest boxes') except wood pigeons (UK ones) and herring gulls. (You might want to look those up in the search facility too; some background on our battles with gulls might help you follow where this is going).

F relied on crows to chase away the gulls and deter wood pigeons from hoovering up all the bird food and getting fat and making more wood pigeons.  Our backyard was booby trapped with experiments in defeating the feasting intentions of both grey squirrels and wood pigeons.

As it happens the crows sided with me one day to chase one of the squirrels away.  I reckon that squirrel got the fright of his life - thought he had narrowly avoided the cat only to have the crows swoop on him as he stopped to catch his breath at the top of the hedge!

I digress again - here we are in Greece (this is the story)....The range of winging wildlife is a lot smaller but we still have our big three: crows, pigeons and seagulls.  We also have house-martins of course.  The starlings disappeared when the gums trees got their short back and sides, and we only rarely see a sparrow or a collared dove.

Oh how allegiances move.  Pigeons are still as far from our end as it is possible to get.  They should be celebrated for their adaptability, their perseverance, and their urban success.  Instead they are derided as stupid poop-generators that reputedly carry more diseases communicable to humans than rats do.  (Avian 'flu' anyone?)

Imagine my surprise however to be roused from my hammock slumbers by the sound of cheering coming from my humans.  Was someone scoring goals? Watching F1 from Porto Mayo?

That powerline that crosses the street from in front of our place to the corner of the old taverna was loaded as usual with pigeons, and sitting atop the pole on the opposite corner was a big gull.

Every so often the gull, motivated how, we can only guess, would swoop along the power line scaring all the pigeons into flight (any surplus weight being jettisoned onto the cars parked below) and then chase the flock of pigeons around a couple of circuits of the inlet.  The pigeons would return to roost on the line, the gull returned to the pole and the whole circus would start all over again.

The first pigeon-shoot might have been accidental but after 5 or 6 there was definitely intent involved. Mr B decided to film it but by then the gull had lost interest and went in search of a different game.  An hour or two later we saw the one gull back and doing a wobbly balancing trick on the middle of the power line - now devoid of pigeons.

Throughout, the crows remained as aloof spectators, occasionally sharing the powerline with the pigeons, sometimes adding some commentary from the top of the bus stop or the poster-board by the garden.

I never thought that I would see the day that F was barracking for the gulls.  One stole her ice-cream in St Ives once, and I know that gulls were dead unpopular in our backyard in Havant strutting about like they owned the place; hooligan gangs that terrorized everything (except the crows).

No photos - the gull seems to have moved on.  The Lone Ranger gull.

So here are some photos from F's bike ride this morning.  She came back and reported that cafes and restaurants have reopened and the outdoor tables on the sunset end of our street were jam-packed by 9am : bums on seats, people nursing coffee and cigarettes.

She rides to Perama (where we have previously got on the ferry to Salamis) so the flavour is industrial: docks and shipyards mainly.  However Perama does have some attractive backstreets with houses (with gardens) and trees and some pretty tavernas and cafes.  She says it feels like a very green and restful place because of all the trees. Most people would disagree with that description of Perama, but then most people probably never venture off the main road in and out of the ferry terminal.

This seems to be the year for red bougainvillea - last year the best displays were neon pink ones.

These two (above and below) are parallel and about 10metres apart - you can just see a bit of tree on the right of  the top photo.  The bottom one is not one of the 'pretty' streets but it is definitely a green one.

Perama is probably best known for shipyards.

This one is in Drapetsona but we can't tell you anything about it.