WATCH: Rare hoopoe bird spotted on Isle of Wight captured on video

18th April

By James Woolven Senior Reporter

A RARE visitor to the Isle of Wight was spotted by bird watchers at Brading.

A hoopoe, which is a rare migratory bird, was seen yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon.

Bird watcher Alan Brown, shared this video with the County Press.

The RSPB says Britain enjoys around 100 individual hoopoes that visit each spring as birds migrating north to Europe from Africa overshoot and land on the south coast of England.

Alan said: "They are a scarce visitor to Britain. We had one at Shanklin last year, but generally go several years between sightings.

"I go birding for hours everyday and it’s only my third in 50 plus years on the Island.

"They are of course more common in the Mediterranean countries.

"These birds are often seen on golf courses, where they feed on their favourite food, leather jacket beetles.

"It was first spotted by the land owner who posted on the Facebook nature group, so obviously I went straight over with a couple of birding mates and that’s when we saw it.

"We are very grateful to the lady land owner."

Source and video

Rare Hoopoe spotted near Perambalur Sampath Kumar

Mar 21, 2019, 04:22 IST

Trichy: For city-based field biologist Q Ashoka Chakkravarthy, sighting a solitary Hoopoe bird near Perambalur district was a visual treat. While he has been sighting these birds for the past five years, he said the numbers are dwindling in the region that he could count them only in single digits and he may not find in the coming years.

Found in large numbers about a decade ago, Hoopoe birds have come down to a few. These flying beauties have almost become extinct around the central region mainly because of the fragmentation of forest and habitat loss, Ashoka said. He stressed the need to educate youngsters on the conservation of forests and its importance to sustain bird species as the world is observing International Day of Forests 2019 on Thursday on the theme ‘forest and education,’.

Spotting the bird in T Kalathur village in Perambalur district, which falls close to a reserve forest area, Ashoka said that these birds keep off human habitation. These birds have a long pinkish-brown crest and its head topped by a prominent erectile crest. It primarily uses their long, slender, curved bill to probe for large insects, worms, lizards, and frogs on the ground. Once a very common bird, which was evaluated as the least concern (LC) as per Bird Life International in 2015, an organisation for bird conservation, Hoopoe has witnessed drastic fall in its population.

Now on the verge of extinction in this region, Ashoka says there have been a lot of changes in the physical environment over the recent years. “Use of pesticides in cultivated lands has affected micro-organisms, which are primary the feed of these birds and reduced their life span,” he said. While advocating concrete steps towards habitat conservation, Ashoka said the government should come forward to carry out a detailed study on the bird and look into the reason for its dwindling numbers and take appropriate steps.

Source

Rare migrating hoopoe spotted at wildlife reserve

16th November

Press Association 2018

A rare hoopoe bird has been spotted in Angus after it was blown off course on its autumn migration.

Birdwatchers have been flocking to the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Montrose Basin Wildlife Reserve since the bird arrived last week.

Hoopoes do not breed in the UK but they can be blown off course during spring and autumn migrations between southern Europe and Africa.

The exotic looking bird, which has black and white wings, a curved beak and a distinctive crest, has been seen at various locations around the Basin over the past week and appears to be doing well.

A Scottish Wildlife Trust spokesman said on Friday: “It has been seen several times today and is feeding and seems quite happy.

“It has attracted a lot of visitors but it seems to be getting on undisturbed.

“Hoopoes are unlikely to over-winter in the UK so it should find its way back on course and head back south.”

Nine hoopoes have been spotted in Scotland so far this year and on average between five and 20 of the birds are recorded north of the border annually.

Hoopoes were considered sacred in ancient Egypt and decorative carvings of the birds have been seen in tombs and temples.

Source  

New 48 MILLION-YEAR-OLD bird discovered in Germany with ‘likely relation to hoopoes’

A NEW 48 million-year-old species of bird has been discovered in Germany that is a “likely relation to modern hoopoes”, according to experts.

By JOSEPH CAREY

PUBLISHED: 05:02, Wed, Oct 18, 2017 | UPDATED: 05:58, Wed, Oct 18, 2017

Fossils have been discovered of a 48 million-year-old bird

Fossils were discovered of the 48 million-year-old bird that is similar in size to a wren and uses waxy oils to clean its feathers.

The author of the study, Dr Shane O’Reilly, said: “This research shows these long-beaked tiny birds, about the size of a wren, are likely the ancestors of modern hoopoes and wood-hoopoes.

“The Messelirrisoridae birds probably spent most of their lives in trees, rather than foraging on the ground or catching insects in flight.

“The uropygial gland, also called the preen gland, is an important gland in modern birds that produces a waxy oil that is transferred to feathers during preening.

Read on  

Israel’s national bird spotted in Kerala

A rare migratory bird, Hoopoe, has been sighted at Kayamkulam. The bird belonging to an endangered species, is characterised by a crown of feathers and a cry ‘oop, oop’, from which it derives its name.

The migratory bird is a rare sight in Kerala, says Harikumar, a bird watcher, who, along with Srimon, Secretary of Alappuzha Natural History society, had spotted the bird at the TKMM College grounds.

Hoopoe is the national bird of Israel. Its features include black and white stripes on its wings and tail. Its flight resembles that of a giant butterfly.

“It is a dryland species found outside Kerala, mostly in Tamil Nadu. The sighting in Alappuzha is rare. Two years ago, a Hoopoe was found at Nooranad,” he said.



Source

Hoopoe causing a hoopla in southeast as 50 exotic birds spotted

Birdwatchers believe a funnel of air caused them to overshoot France and land in Ireland

A hoopoe: it is 50 years since so many have been spotted in Ireland.

Alison Healy

Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 01:00

First published:Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 01:00

If you think you spotted an unusual pink bird with zebra-patterned wings in recent weeks, you are not alone.

The hoopoe, so called because of the sound it makes, has come to these shores in unexpectedly large numbers this year, with at least 50 being spotted, according to Birdwatch Ireland’s head of operations, Oran O’Sullivan. It is 50 years since so many hoopoes have been spotted here.

Usually, fewer than 10 are recorded in early spring or late autumn when migrating birds stray off course.

Mr O’Sullivan said the exotic birds, about the size of a starling or thrush, were a Mediterranean species, typically nesting in trees and olive groves.

Continued ...

Hoopoes' eggs show their true colors

Date:

August 14, 2014

Source:

Springer Science+Business Media

Summary:

Preen gland secretion causes hoopoes’ eggs to change color, possibly giving signals about the robustness of the mother bird, researchers have found. Hoopoe females use cosmetics on their eggs - and the eggs gradually change color when they are incubated, from bluish-grey to a more saturated greenish-brown. This happens because secretion from the uropygial or preen gland – a substance birds use to preen and protect their feathers – is transfered from the female hoopoe’s gland to her eggs directly with the bill and by means of belly feathers.

Read on ......

Hoopoe 'thinks Innerleithen is the south of France'

22 May 2014 Last updated at 17:10

An exotic-looking bird is thought to have overshot its migration to southern Europe and ended up in the Borders.

The hoopoe arrived in Innerleithen on Sunday and was spotted outside a bed and breakfast in the town.

Lesley Foster, the guest house owner, was only able to identify it thanks to bird-watchers staying with her.

Mike Fraser, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: "We do get one every three or four years but usually along the coast.

"It is an over-shooting migrant and probably thinks Innerleithen is the south of France, with the recent warm weather we have had.

"It is great to see a bird like this in the Borders - it is difficult to say how long it will stay."

Ms Forster said she was delighted by the unusual visitor.

'Pretty excited'

She said: "My neighbour mentioned that a strange looking bird was hanging around our garden but I was so busy I had never noticed it.

Read more

Rare Hoopoe bird spotted in Dorset

2:23pm Thursday 8th May 2014 in NewsBy Lee Irving

BIRDWATCHERS in Dorset have been twitching with excitement after a rare bird was found at a burial ground.

A Hoopoe bird, pronounced hu-pu, was spotted at the Higher Ground Meadow Burial Ground in Corscombe earlier this week.

The species of bird, which is more commonly found in warmer climates in Africa and Mediterranean countries such as Spain, was discovered earlier this week. It is believed the bird may have got lost when it was flying north towards its natural habitat for the breeding season.

The species is highly distinctive due to its long, thin tapering bill that is black plus its crown of feathers.

Jo Vassie, one of the managers at the Higher Ground Meadow burial ground in Corscombe, managed to get a picture of it on Thursday.

Continued

Swiss recovery programme shows increase in bird species

Over the past ten years the population of Little Owl in Switzerland has increased after a sharp decline. Hoopoe has more than doubled and Corncrake has come back at the level of breeding species after almost reaching the level of extinction in the 1990’s. These are some of the results of the Swiss Species Recovery Program for Birds.

This programme, which was launched in 2003 by SVS/BirdLife Switzerland together with the Swiss Ornithological Institute and the Federal Office for the Environment, provides safe species-specific nesting sites and improves or creates habitats providing sufficient food. A common coordination unit is partly based in Zurich, at SVS/BirdLife Switzerland and in Sempach, at the Ornithological Institute.

At the beginning of the programme a sound analysis of the target species was made. Endangered species were only included if they were not naturally rare (e.g. at the edge of the breeding area). A next step was the realisation of an assessment aiming at measuring the sufficiency and relevancy of the existing conservation measures in habitats and sites for the conservation of these species, or if they needed additional measures. The result was that 50 priority species were in need of specific measures, which would be delivered by the programme.

During the last ten years actions in the field have been carried out for 30 species and six official action plans were produced; the first ones for species conservation in Switzerland. The action plans should give the programme even more strength and extend its outcomes to more than 50 species.

For more information, please contact: Werner Müller and Raffael Ayé


http://www.birdlife.org/community/2013/01/swiss-recovery-programme-shows-increase-in-bird-species/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=swiss-recovery-programme-shows-increase-in-bird-species