It’s getting like a zoo around here, what with tarantulas sitting on Neil’s head and parakeets in the tree. The other day, you might remember, I witnessed an owl hunting warblers in the afternoon, and yesterday, while looking for the parakeet, we saw a chaffinch in the tree instead. The ravens flew past yesterday, a pair that circles nearby, and there will hopefully be more to see as the season progresses. I’ve not seen the kestrels yet, though there were eagles over the windmill hills a while ago (more likely buzzards), and the turtle doves have brought their young one to the square.
The swallows and martins have been whizzing up and down the top of the Kali Strata, through the bars beneath the awnings, and out again, and often stop for a good old natter on the cables outside the house. We have the ever-vocal cockerels and chickens sharing the bin life with the stray cats up the road, a few gulls out on the water, where, this year, the dolphins came further into shore in the harbour. Some local creatures have still to make their appearance; the roaches, for example, and the snakes, and we’ve not yet had the usual invasion of ants into various parts of the house, though we’ve had some of those armour-plated millipedes, plus moths, butterflies, boring old flies, and other flying things, including a couple of Asian Migratory Locusts in the courtyard. They are those large ‘grasshoppers’ that clatter about the place, landing occasionally on one’s glasses. They remind me of those plastic, wind-up flapping birds that were all the rage at tourist attractions back in the 70s, and possibly still are.
And while all that is going on, so is the human world. Yesterday, with a party in the kafeneion for little Yiannis, who was two yesterday. (Thank you for the pieces of cake.)
