Animals need to eat

"Wild Greece: Highlands and islands" is a two-part nature documentary produced by the Austrian TV network ORT. When I saw it, I was *almost* shocked. Is it just me, or do nature docus these days no longer show predation, aggression and too explicit mating? Many times, the hunter becomes the hunted, smaller animals succesfully challenge larger, and so on. Not wrong, per se, but surely a new development? Except in this one! It seems animals (of all sizes and phyla) in Greece still devour each other in good ol´ social-Darwinist fashion, not to mention some pretty agressive mating habits (or intra-species fights in general). Or at least in the highlands and on the islands... 

There doesn´t seem to be any deeper point with this production (not that it must have one) except to show various spectacular Greek vistas (with not a single Greek in sight) and as many animal species as humanly possible within a two-episode format. Brace yourselves for vultures, falcons, pelicans, cormorants, all kinds of passerines...and that´s just the birds. Snakes, lizards (some of them pretty weird), moths, really scary orthopterans and allies, the inevitable feral goats, and surprisingly petit bears (well, at least they´re petit by bear standards) are some of the other highlights. And speaking of highs, they actually show Mount Olympus, the abode of the Hellenic gods according to traditional mythology. The gods are gone, but the mountain itself turns out to have more than one peak! 

Another spectacular site shown is the small island of Antikythera north of Crete, mostly known for the strange "computer" salvaged there from an ancient shipwreck. The mechanism is not shown (it´s a *nature* documentary, remember?), but seeing the island, I can understand why a ship might have gotten in trouble there! Today, the most notable nature-related site on the island is a large breeding colony of fairly large falcons (the species known as Eleonora´s falcon, to be exact). Apparently, the migratory birds spend the winter in Madagascar, so perhaps a docu from that place will show them, too? 

"Wild Greece" might be good for tourists who visited Greece and (of course) didn´t see any of the above, or for occasional nature documentary aficionados as yours truly, but might be considered immensely boring if, say, the trial of Socrates or the exploits of Herakles are more your thing...