Upupa epops Linnaeus 1758
In the Descent of Man, Darwin mentions the male hoopoe's use of both
instrumental and vocal music. During the mating season, males will
inhale air and produce a call while drumming their beaks perpendicularly
on a tree or stone. This produces a unique percussive call that is
impossible to make without a simultaneous vocal and drumming component
(Darwin 1879).
I moved this to Taxon Biology, so it will show up in the EOL Brief Summary section.
The Hoopoe is an old world species related to the rollers
(Coraciiformes) with five or so identified subspecies (sometimes those
five are divided into two species instead of being grouped as one). [When
you make a statement like this, you really need to back it up with
references. In this case, it actually turns out that the situation is a
bit complicated. In the past, the hoopoes were tentatively placed with
the rollers, but recent studies have shown that the hoopoes are more
closely related to hornbills, which are usually placed in their own
order, the Bucerotiformes. See Cracraft et al. 2004, Ericson et al.
2006, Hackett et al. 2008 (full references in the biblio section). Some
people now want to place the hoopoes in the Bucerotiformes, while
others simply want to move the hornbills + hoopoes together into an
expanded Coraciiformes, which would then also have to contain the
Piciformes and Trogoniformes. The jury is still out on how things will
shake out in the end. Also, a lot of people recognize three, rather
than two hoopoe species.]
These birds have a very distinctive appearance which is demonstrated in the
long black tipped orange crests that can be held erect. Their wings are
black and white patterned and their face is accented by a long slightly
curved beak.
Hoopoes dwell predominately in the grasslands
and savannas where they often pace the ground, and eat invertebrates,
including insects, that they capture with their probing bills
(Britannica Online, not in your list of references?). They are slow, bounding flyers with long rhythmic wingbeats (Birds of Armenia, not in your list of references?).
Hoopoes nest in any available cavity, be it in stone, trees, sand or clay. They
furnish their nests with feathers and stems (Birds of Armenia). Each
nest will contain approximately 5-9 olive-green eggs 26 mm in length
(Birds of Armenia, not in your list of references?).
Because of an intensification of agriculture and a resulting loss of nesting
habitat, hoopoes have become rarer in the last half century (Loset
2007).