Birds
Eurasian Hoopoe
Upupa epops · also called Eurasian hoopoe, common hoopoe
The hoopoe is one of the most instantly recognisable birds of the Old World — salmon-pink, boldly barred in black and white, with a fold-out crest and a bounding, butterfly-like flight. It is also one of the smelliest, at least at the nest, where the defence strategy involves cultivated bacteria and projectile droppings.
Overview
The Eurasian hoopoe breeds across most of Europe, Africa, and Asia, in open and lightly wooded country — pasture, orchards, vineyards, savanna, steppe — that combines bare or short ground for feeding with cavities for nesting. European birds are migratory, wintering in sub-Saharan Africa. The song is a soft, resonant “oop-oop-oop,” which gives the bird its name in language after language.
Feeding
The hoopoe walks on the ground probing the soil, leaf litter, and dung with its long, slightly downcurved bill for large insects and grubs — mole crickets, beetle larvae, caterpillars. It can open just the tip of its bill while the rest is buried, letting it grab prey underground.
The crest
The crest is normally carried flat and swept back, but the bird throws it up into a full fan on landing, when alarmed, and in display — the moment most people picture when they think of a hoopoe.
A defended nest
Hoopoes nest in holes in trees, walls, and banks, and the nest is actively made unpleasant:
- The incubating female’s preen gland switches to producing a foul, dark secretion — cultured by bacteria, smelling of rotting meat — which she and the chicks smear on their feathers. It deters predators and suppresses parasites.
- Nestlings hiss, jab, and fire faeces at anything reaching into the hole.
- Droppings are left to accumulate, adding to the smell.
A cultural icon
The hoopoe appears in ancient Egyptian art, in the Torah and Quran, as the wise leader of the birds in the Persian Conference of the Birds, and is the national bird of Israel.
Status
The hoopoe is Least Concern overall but declining in northern and western Europe, where insect-rich pasture, old orchards, and hollow trees are disappearing.
Eurasian Hoopoe: common questions
How did the hoopoe get its name?
The name is onomatopoeic — it imitates the bird's song, a soft, far-carrying, three-note "oop-oop-oop" (or "poo-poo-poo") repeated in series. Many languages have arrived at similar names independently — hoopoe in English, huppe in French, Wiedehopf in German, hudhud in Arabic and Hebrew, and the genus name Upupa in Latin. It is one of the clearest cases of a bird being named directly after the sound it makes.
Why do hoopoe nests smell so bad?
It is a defence, and it is deliberate. When a female hoopoe begins incubating, the gland at the base of her tail changes its secretion from the usual waxy preen oil to a dark brown fluid that smells strongly of rotting flesh, caused by bacteria the bird cultivates in the gland. She and, once hatched, the chicks rub this over their plumage. The smell and its antimicrobial compounds are thought to deter mammalian predators, discourage other animals from investigating the cavity, and suppress feather-degrading bacteria and parasites. The nest hole is also not kept clean — droppings accumulate — adding to the stench.
Can hoopoe chicks really shoot their droppings at predators?
Yes. In addition to the smell, nestling hoopoes that feel threatened will hiss like a snake, stab upward with their bills, and forcefully eject a stream of liquid faeces toward the entrance of the nest hole. A predator reaching in gets a foul, messy surprise. Combined with the rotting-meat odour and the female's secretion, this makes a hoopoe nest an unappealing target, which matters because the birds nest in tree and wall cavities that a determined predator could otherwise raid easily.
Is the hoopoe a lucky or symbolic bird?
In many cultures, strongly so. It appears in ancient Egyptian art, is named in the Torah and the Quran (where it brings the Queen of Sheba's message to King Solomon), features as the wise leader of the birds in the Persian poem The Conference of the Birds, and is the national bird of Israel. Elsewhere it has sometimes been seen as a bad omen because of its association with graveyards and its smell. It is a genuinely widespread cultural icon across Europe, Africa, and Asia.