The Eurasian Hoopoe isn’t picky about where it nests. But whether it builds a home in a tree cavity, termite mound, or nest box, it’ll be stinky. Mother birds coat their eggs in an antimicrobial secretion that smells like rotten eggs. Then, when the chicks are hatched, they paint the nest
The soft, modest hoots of the Hoopoe signal a bird so distinctive and fabled that it’s hard to know where to begin this story. Hoopoes are the only existing members of a unique family of birds: Upupidae. They fly on rounded, zebra-striped wings, fluttering unevenly like a giant butterfly
