Hoopoe

Variegated, brightly colored bird. The back is a beautiful clay-red tones, a long crest on the head with an orange-red, the tips of feathers khokhol black, shoulders and wings are also black with contrasting white or yellowish-white transverse stripes, the lower side of the body strongly clay-yellow, the sides in black longitudinal bar spots ; black tail in the middle is decorated with a broad white band. A small bird, the length of her body is barely 30 centimeters, the scope spravlennyh wings 45 cm, wing length of about 15 - 16 centimeters, the length of the beak about 4-6 centimeters.

Hoopoe has a wide geographical spread. He meets the nesting of Portugal and the Canary Islands to the Ussuri. To the north reaches of southern Sweden, southern coast of the Gulf, parts of Leningrad, Novgorod and to the upper reaches of the Volga. In these places hoopoe is rare, it becomes more common, south of the Oka River, in the black earth belt. It breeds in the steppes and forest steppes of southern Trans-Urals and Western Siberia, Transbaikalia, Amur and Ussuri River valley. To the south it extended to the north and north-eastern Africa, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, India, Indo-China and China, also found in Madagascar.

It depends on the terrain, hoopoe appears in the spring in March and April. Soon after arrival the males hoopoe begin their spring peculiar cries. Creek lapwing can be passed as a dull, slightly guttural "UP-oop-oop-oop ..." or "do-doo-doo," not without a certain melody. Shouting the male raises and lowers its fan-shaped crest. In the midst of mating cries of the lapwing are heard not only in the mornings and evenings, when most of the songs and cries of birds are heard with the greatest force, but in the afternoon heat. Occasionally you can hear a dull "yn-yn ..." even at night.

In places where the hoopoe not pursued, it is relatively little shy. Gently, without making any sudden movements, you can go up close and enjoy this beautiful bird. Here hoopoe walks on pasture near the road. The bird quickly crosses, swaying slightly, and at times dissolving crest. Hoopoe busy procuring of food. The main power to him are the larvae of insects, accumulate in the manure, as well as beetles (dung beetles, Silphidae, May beetles) and steppe grasshopper. This bird is very long and slender beak, but the language is short. In order to swallow some insect, hoopoe often have to throw it up, and then catch a beak and swallow it. To cope with the larger beetle, hoopoe is sometimes necessary to hit several times with a beetle on the ground to split and cracked his armor, and only then, in part, to swallow, tossing the individual pieces into the air.

At the north border of their nests, as well as in places where the hoopoe is subjected to some persecution, this bird has become very cautious and not let to a man at close range.

Most hoopoes nest in old hollow trees: willows, birches, oaks. Litter egg is rotten wood. It happens that hoopoes nest under the eaves of barns or in heaps of dung, in the old warehouses of firewood. In semi-arid zone, where almost no trees, the nests are in burrows Udodoff on clay slopes, holes in stone walls. In the foothills hoopoes sometimes arranged in the crevices of rocks. Complete clutch contains 3 to 8 eggs (egg length 23-29 mm). The color of the shell is very diverse: they are whitish, yellowish, grayish-green, greenish-blue and even a cinnamon-chocolate. Full laying in the middle of the chernozem zone are in the middle of May (hatching lasts about two weeks).

In the middle of the black earth belt young derived from eggs about the beginning of June, to the north in mid-June. In the first days after the withdrawal of young chicks are comical and unattractive appearance: they are almost naked, blind, their little bodies are covered with sparse bundles down. Chicks are fed by both parents with care, pulling into the slot of the larvae of insects, worms (especially dung and carrion beetles). Hoopoes very slovenly, accumulate in the nest selection, exhaling foul odor. Sometimes the stench from the nest attracts flies, which lay in the decaying matter their eggs, then in this part of the nest there are fly larvae. When the young get stronger and will fly from the nest, the old hoopoes hold for some time with broods, while continuing to feed them.

Hoopoes nest every summer. When the old birds will withdraw and feed the young, broods break. At this time, is molting feather, and the lapwing are relatively cautious. Otlet Udodoff occurs on a different date of August, depending on latitude. The flyby occurs at night or at dawn.