We regularly hear Eurasian Hoopoes (Poupas in Portuguese) on walks throughout the Algarve but regular readers will know I have struggled to photograph them. In fact I was beginning to consider them my bête noire. However as you can see from this post my luck completely changed on a lovely stroll in Ludo and Lagoa de São Lourenço. A pair were happily hunting for grubs right in front of us. They were even joined at one point by a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.
My perfect shot will be of a Hoopoe looking at the camera with their glorious crest fully erect. So Poupa perfection has yet to be achieved but I am getting closer!
Their scientific name is Upupa Epops, and like their English and Portuguese names, they are onomatopoeic, ie their name imitates the sound the bird makes. Have a listen to this excellent Xeno-Canto recording by Peter Boesman.
The Hoopoe diet consists mainly of insects such as crickets, locusts, beetles, earwigs, and ants. They will occasionally also eat berries and even small reptiles. Apparently though they have a preferred dinner size of around 20–30 millimetres. Looks like this one may have found just that!
Oops forgot to link this to my other blog! I was ‘tickled pink’.
Just browsing your birds, you have a lot of great photos. Only once did we see a hoopoe on our finca in the sierra Aracena. Thankfully just outside the window. Probably migrating but I wonder where. But we see so many here by the old pines in Cabanas.
Thank you so much 🙂 you are lucky to see so many, and thinking about it when we do see them here it is often near pines. Maybe the insects are better near pines!
We have seen those pine processionary moth caterpillars there too.
Seems to be a favourite haunt of theirs 😕
Amazing pics. Thank You.
Those birds are so beautiful
They are wonderful, aren’t they 🙂
Marvelous, Becky. The first Hoopoe I saw was here, in South Africa. Though it is the African Hoopoe, of course – something I did not realise at the time, thinking it was a migratory bird.
It is an infrequent visitor to our spot and I have experienced the same frustration of not having a camera at hand when one pops into the garden.
But I have had a modicum of success.
When someone called from the kitchen a while back and pointed out the window, this is what I saw!
https://attaleuntold.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/watch-the-birdy-african-hoopoe-a-few-more/
I’d love to see a hoopoe, but I don’t think they’ve come this far west yet, we do have green parakeets though.
Won’t be too long I’m sure. One was spotted in Wiltshire last week!
Amazingly the parakeets have missed us, seemed to have gone from London straight to you. Sensible fellows!