Hoopoes raise a crown and weaponise nest stench
Across Africa, Asia, and Europe, hoopoes flash a raisable feather crown and probe soil for insects. Two living species and one extinct Saint Helena form are recognised; Linnaeus named the genus Upupa in 1758, taking Latin and Greek words that echo the bird's call.
Long lumped as one species, hoopoes are now split into the Eurasian hoopoe and the Madagascar hoopoe; the Saint Helena hoopoe vanished in the sixteenth century, likely after human arrival. They need bare ground for foraging and cavities in trees, cliffs, walls, or burrows for nests, so they use heath, savanna, orchards, and vineyards yet decline under intensive farming. European and north Asian birds migrate to the tropics; African birds stay put. One migrant was recorded near 6,400 metres on the first Mount Everest expedition.
Diet is mostly insects—crickets, beetles, mole crickets—taken with a full-bill probe into soil, plus occasional frogs, reptiles, seeds, and berries. Preferred prey runs about 20 to 30 millimetres long. Pairs are monogamous for a season and fiercely territorial; rival males may stab until blinded. Clutches are larger at high latitudes—around twelve eggs in central and northern Europe and Asia versus about four in the tropics. Incubation lasts 15 to 18 days; chicks fledge in 26 to 29 days.
Nest defence is chemical and theatrical. Brooding females and nestlings secrete a rotting-meat smell from modified uropygial glands rubbed into feathers, thought to deter predators and parasites. From about day six, chicks can shoot faeces at intruders and hiss like snakes. Because they eat processionary moth pupae few other birds will touch, many countries protect hoopoes by law. Folklore runs from Egyptian heir symbols and Solomon's messenger in Jewish and Qur'anic tradition to Attar's Conference of the Birds and darker European omens.
Source: Hoopoe
