Over the past couple of weeks a really exceptional chicken has been making headlines within the nationwide press throughout Eire. The Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops), has been turning up in unprecedented numbers this spring, significantly alongside the south coast, making this one of the best alternative ever to catch a glimpse of this unique customer.
Eurasian Hoopoe is a migratory species that breeds throughout a lot of continental Europe and Asia, with probably the most northerly breeders overwintering additional south. Each spring we get just a few people that by chance overshoot their meant vacation spot of their breeding grounds on the Iberian peninsula or France, and arrive on the Irish south coast, a lot to the delight of native birdwatchers.
This yr, it appears a mixture of persistent excessive stress and regular south-easterly winds have resulted in much more birds than typical persevering with past their meant vacation spot and arriving right here in Eire. The primary birds have been reported in late March, with the inflow persevering with by the primary, and now into the second week of April. The final main Hoopoe inflow in Eire was again in 2015, when greater than 45 birds have been reported over the spring… this time across the determine is properly over 100 birds and climbing.
It’s price re-iterating that the birds we see in Eire are the migratory Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops), not, as has been extensively reported throughout a number of media retailers in current days, the African Hoopoe (Upupa africana), which is a resident, largely sedentary chicken that happens throughout most of sub-saharan Africa.
The Hoopoe is a curious-looking chicken in regards to the measurement of a Blackbird, with putting cinnamon plumage augmented with vivid black-and-white stripes and a spectacular crest on its crown. In flight its broad, fingered wings flash black and white in a particular, nearly fluttering, butterfly-like movement. Hoopoes spend most of their time foraging on the bottom in brief grass, the place they probe for grubs and worms with their lengthy, fantastic curved payments.
One in every of at the very least 5 Hoopoes to show up at Galley Head in West Cork in April 2025
The sheer scale of the inflow this spring, with many birds being seen in teams of two, three or much more birds, has led to hypothesis some would possibly pair up and keep to breed. Whereas the prospect of the primary breeding report for the species in Eire is a tantalising one, it’s extremely doubtless that almost all if not all of those unique interlopers will relaxation and feed up for some time, earlier than heading again to their typical breeding grounds on the continent.
