1 December 2011

Has any first time vagrant for Australia caused as much astonishment and cheap flight-hunting as Broome’s gorgeous Hoopoe? Possibly not. Just the thought of its journey here boggles the mind. Its closest departure points are thousands of kilometers away in either the Malay peninsula region or Sri Lanka. As it is a large, flamboyant bird apparently built for looks rather than intercontinental travel many of us would not have been willing to bet on one turning up in Oz this side of hell freezing over. And yet, here it is.

When I heard the news I whooped with delight. Hoopoe is a favourite bird of mine, one which has popped up in my life at key moments. This is entirely appropriate. For many cultures around the world it is a semi-mythical talisman, a bird which looms large in the cultural life of millions.

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA (BILQIS) FACING THE HOOPOE, SOLOMON'S MESSENGER/ False signature of Bihzad Iran, Safavid, Qazvin Tinted drawing on paper Date c. 1590-1600. Public Domain

As the first images of it went up on Bird-o.com I was swept back to a clutch of memories. It is a hard bird to forget: those jolly chequerboard wings which look like a racetrack finish flag as the bird flushes from cover, that warm cinnamon orange body, its semi-translucent erectable crest like a cartoon sunset and the long delicate forceps of its bill. It is a bird made for fame.

As a teenage twitcher in Scotland I longed for a vagrant Hoopoe to arrive within my bicycle-and-train-bound birding range. In those pre-climate change days Scots vagrant Hoopoe were rare as nuns in bikinis, so I didn’t hold out much hope. Tragically, when news of one fluttering around a golf course just 20 miles off finally did arrive via a late night phonecall, it coincided neatly with the day of my final mathematics exam. It was a close thing but in the end my father put his foot down and insisted that a maths qualification came first. I failed that exam, and learnt an important life lesson: when in doubt, go birding.

My first encounter with a wild Hoopoe had to wait until my first trip to continental Europe years later. As I pitched my tent in the verge of a flower-filled Spanish hay meadow, without fanfare one fluttered overhead through the confetti of butterflies. It flopped into the branches of a nearby oak, fanned its crest just to emphasise that, yes, it really was a Hoopoe, then flapped off over a hill. I was walking on air after that. As spectacular as Spain is for a birder nothing else I saw on that trip compared to the magic of that first Hoopoe.

Much later while living in Morocco I was introduced to the cultural significance of the Hoopoe for some of the peoples lucky to live within its range. I spent an enlightening afternoon with old Omar, a Berber village elder with a colorful past life as a sniper in the French Foreign Legion. As I was being shown around his farm of small barley fields on hillside terraces interspersed with walnut and olive groves several Hoopoe were calling from the treetops.

Seeing I was interested in the birds Omar told me the story of the Hoopoe’s role in King Solomon hooking up with the Queen of Sheeba as featured in the Quran. For Muslims the Hudhud (the name of Hoopoe in Arabic) is the Messenger Bird because of its shuttling between Judea and Sheeba with diplomatic dispatches.

Later while chatting with wizards in Marrakech’s Sorcerers’ Souk (as you do) I learned that the Hoopoe’s Quranic fame is a poisoned chalice in this part of the world. The birds close connection to Solomon imbibes it with magical power which is apparently best tapped by wearing a trinket around your neck containing bits of dead Hoopoe. As proof I was shown the contents of these trinkets; scraps of bone, skin and the telltale feathers in pink and pied. This explained why Moroccan Hoopoes seemed more nervous than their Spanish counterparts- they must spend their days dodging wizards’ apprentices armed with catapults.

I encountered more of the Islamic relationship with Hoopoe when in Jerusalem’s old city doing some sightseeing. I hired a tour guide to walk me around the famous Dome of the Rock/Solomon’s Temple compound, a sardonic elderly muslim bloke also called Omar. He affected a thoroughly-bored-of-tourists attitude as we walked through the site’s massive gates. I mentioned that I was interested in birds and this was his cue to go on a great long spiel about the Hudhud and King Solomon which was identical to the story I had heard from the original Omar, until at the end when he said; “Today the descendent of Solomon’s Hudhud lives here in the gardens of the Temple Mount. It is a beautiful pure shining white, as befits a creature so beloved of Allah.”
“What, there is an albino Hudhud here? Really?” I replied.

Omar looked haughtily indignant, obviously surprised to have a statement questioned by a foreigner: “I would not say such a thing if it were not true. Yes, the bird is white and it lives here. I have seen it many times. Every day.” “That’s great” I said, getting my binoculars out of my backpack. “Lets go look for it”.
Omar’s expression froze and I could see the “oh s**t” look in his eyes as I looped the binocular strap around my neck. “This is the wrong time of day, the Hudhud will be asleep.” “But its 8am. All the other birds are active.” I protested, tongue-in-cheek.

Omar stuck to his escape route:  “Yes, the white Hudhud will be sleeping. He wakes only when the Mount is closed to all but worshippers. You are a disbeliever so you will not see him so it would be best for you to just look at the beautiful Mosques instead.”

So we plodded around the site taking in the remarkable if rather heavily renovated Mosques and the tourist-free peace which can only be gleaned from visiting a destination locked in an intractable guerilla war. No Hudhud, white or otherwise, made themselves known to us, much to Omar’s satisfaction no doubt.

Over the years I have found many more references to the Hoopoe’s cultural prominence; it features in Jewish and Persian folklore and is considered good luck in countries as far apart as China and France. It is a bird which for millennia humans have found hard to ignore. I think its entirely fitting that the first Hoopoe to arrive in Australia should provoke the passions and inspire birders to adventure. Who knows, he might be carrying an important message for you?