“I saw a couple of these birds in a tree in Pedralbes. What are they?”, asks Enrique Turégano Costello when sharing his photograph in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia.
The bird in the photograph is a hoopoe. It is a diurnal, solitary, territorial and migratory species. The hoopoe stands out for its colors that make a great contrast with cinnamon, white and black. Its flight is undulating and butterfly-like, with sudden changes of direction.
It can climb trunks, as seen in this image, but it does so rarely. Its beak is very long, and it uses it to dig up larvae that it finds while walking on the ground.
In addition, it feeds on pupae of pine processionary moths and newly buried caterpillars, larvae of wireworm coleoptera (wireworms), ants, diptera and their larvae. It dares with large myriapods, such as the scolopendra, and does not disdain spiders, snails and worms.
The truth is that a characteristic of the hoopoes is their bad smell, really unpleasant, so it is better not to touch them. They secrete this fetid pestilence to defend themselves against predators. It’s like a skunk with feathers.
Throughout history, this bird has been of great cultural interest, for example, because of its plumage, which attracted Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.
Hoopoes are becoming more common in Barcelona’s parks, above all because the winters are less cold and they no longer migrate as much. Throughout the year you can see these birds in the high areas of the city near the mountains, such as Pedralbes or Horta.
