MY Birding in Greece

My father, Reed, my uncle, David Garrison, & my brother, Michael Harwood, were all birders. They all kept lists. My most treasured entry in my father's log was: "Yellow Breasted Chat, seen from hall window [date], 51 years of patient waiting". My brother wrote a book called On the Road with John Jay Audubon & another called A View From Hawk Mountain. There were many others too.

My whole family had an easy acquaintanceship with birds. One of the first books given to me was on on my 8th birthday. It was Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds which I often looked at during rest time at camp in Vermont for 5 summers. I knew many silhouettes. I knew birds even if I said their names wrong, as in 'pleated' for 'pileated'.

So when I decided I would join a trip in Greece that combined birding with antiquities, I was primed. I had been given the Greek name Daphne [I knew the myth of her being turned into a tree by heart]. I had met a lot of Greek ideas & words in mathematics [my major at college]. So I felt always that one day the trip to Greece for me had to happen. When one of our leaders, Joseph, talked a lot about Greek word roots I was over the moon with interest! I had been tracking Greek word roots for years.

George & I got to Athens a few days before we were to get on our boat to go around the Peleponese. I started noticing that I was just naturally gravitating to taking photos of birds!

So here's what I found.  I'll start with pottery. Secretly, as I was clicking my camera, I was asking myself what these birds were....

 This bird-woman below was absolutely & unquestionably influencing Saul Steinberg, the well-known New Yorker magazine artist.

                                       Next mosaics....
                          Peacocks? Coots? Rails? Look at those legs!

Then frescos & textiles & other flat images...

Oh hoopoes...?

                                                          Oh chukar!

...then sculpture....

         The righthand bird below was Byzantine from the Christian era.

And finally the label of the wine bottle we drank on our last night in Athens. Oh my!! 

What a marvelous special birding trip!! I rarely got out my binoculars, I occasionally identified birds, & what I saw was delightful. But I am no longer hungry to add to my list.  I do sort of have one.

But I love the idea of letting go of the list imperative. 

It's very freeing somehow.

I know, that's heresy to avid birders, but that's where I am at.

                         I wonder what Michael, Uncle David, & Reed would think?
                                                       That's it for now.