New friends

I know that I should write a post about my sudden decision to move back to Athens. And I will do so, as soon as I have the time…the first weeks at home are quite hectic.

But I will devote my first post from Greece to two little friends who came quite unexpectedly to our back garden and filled my heart with joy.

The first friend was an Eastern Olivaceous Warbler (in Greek Ωχροστριτσίδα). It’s a bird with brown and pale ochre feathers, if I recognised it alright. I’m not very good at bird watching, but after a little research I read that its singing goes like ‘teak-teak’, and this fits the description of my friend’s voice!

The second and more exotic friend was a hoopoe!(Τσαλαπετεινός) Unbelievable find in a garden which is near a park with sick pine trees. I don’t know where the hoopoe came from, as hoopoes live in forests. There is a forest on the mountain near my place, but that’s a couple of miles away from here. What was the hoopoe doing in my neighbourhood? Hard to know.

A picture of a hoopoe from www.mani.org.gr

I saw the hoopoe early in the morning last Sunday. It was just after seven, when I had a look at the garden and saw this beautiful bird. Although I was far away (on the third floor), I could see its feathers and peculiar colours. It seemed as if it knew that I was watching, but I was very discreet and didn’t scare it. I think it smiled at me! It was very graceful and when it flew away, it drew a fine line in the air. What a creature!

Today I researched the internet and read the following on the site http://www.mani.gr/:

The hoopoe is one of the most exotic creatures of the forest. It is a real housewife: it looks for food with meticulous care and nibbles it without caring about what happens around it. Sometimes it comes out of the forest (that was my friend’s case)…It flies slowly like a butterfly (indeed!). If you come across it in summer, don’t scare it; it will make you feel serene. The hoopoe has this talent…(indeed it has!)

My hoopoe is a bit like me: it went to a foreign land, made friends, had a great time and then flew back home. And it hasn’t regretted it (I hope so for both me and the hoopoe!)