The hawk and the crows

Apart from the happy voices of the visitors, the Acropolis also reverberated with the loud raspy signature calls of the crows, which nested among the monuments, leaving every surface covered with excrement (according to the French journalist Edmond About, who was no fan of the hapless birds). Every spring, a species of hawk arrived in Athens, which delighted in the local locusts but also terrorised the crows. They disappeared until October, when the hawk left for greener pastures and abandoned the Acropolis to its rightful owners.

Creator: Martinus Rørbye (1844)
Source: Statens Museum for Kunst