Wild Barcelona: Hidden hoopoes

A woman comes out on the fire escape to smoke a cigarette. Nearby there’s a Judas tree: it’s seen better days and bears little foliage now. A hole gapes where a large branch was once lopped off. As the woman stands and talks on her mobile, there’s movement and two eyes appear at the hole.

Undeterred by the proximity of the office block, hoopoes nest in this tree every year. People are constantly walking to and fro, but it doesn’t bother them. Perhaps because these eye-catching, crest-flourishing birds have perfected the art of melting into the background. In flight they’re a flurry of black and white and uncertain zigzag direction. But on the ground they blend with the dust of the paths or the dappled shadows under the trees. They forage near the nest, probing the earth for bugs, unnoticed by busy passers-by.

Whenever the parents return to the nest, an item of food held fast in the tip of long pincer-like bills, they are greeted by their hissing young. Hoopoe nests are renowned for their stink, but I’ve never noticed an evil odour emanating from the tree. It’s too high to look into or, for that matter, to receive a faceful of noxious fluid squirted by nestlings, another defensive measure they employ.

As they grow, the young hoopoes are no longer content to sit still in the protective darkness of their tree. They lean out inquisitively, looking in all directions—at the sky, neighbouring trees, at me. But one step too near and the faces rapidly retreat and remain hidden. Soon they’ll be dispersing and the parents will set about raising their second brood of the year. Hoopoes are common in the outskirts of Barcelona, found in the gardens of Pedralbes and in Montjuïc castle. Increasingly, they can be seen in winter too, as old migratory habits change.

Nick Lloyd and Lucy Brzoska write for www.iberianature.com and run nature tours in Barcelona.