Photo:
South African Tourism
| Greek Name: | epops [German: Wiedehopf] | |
| Description: |
Pale reddish-brown plumage with distinct black and white stripes on wings and tail. The beak is thin, very long, and slightly bent to the ground. L 28 cm. | |
| Habitat: |
Common in Southern Europe, lives in open country with groups of trees, builds its nests in holesthat it finds in trees, walls and even on the ground. | |
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Behaviour: |
Flies clumsily in irregular curves. Its walk seems staggering and unstable. In search of food, the hoopoe often stops after a few steps, stabs its beak deep into the ground for a couple of times, and then runs off in a different direction. | |
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Ancient Associations: |
Regarded as dirty and stinking because it searches for bugs, larvae, and worms in animal dung. According to Greek writers, it also builds its nest from human excrement (e.g., Ps.-Aristotle, History of Animals 9.616a 35). Greek myth tells of the transformation of the Thracian king Tereus into a hoopoe. |
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| Sources: |
B. Bruun/ H. Delin/L. Svenson,
Der Kosmos Vogelführer: Die Vögel Deutschlands und Europas,
10th ed. Stuttgart: Franck-Kosmos, 1993, p. 184. |
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