Mott the Hoopoe & All the Young(ish) Dudes!

Sporting a majestic mohawk, I guess the Hoopoe may be more punk-rock than my glam rock pun-tastic blog title (channelling Mott the Hoople) suggests!

Everything about this bird is distinctive, and in a bird family all of their own even their scientific name “Upupa epops” sounds cool! Well, this week for the first time in forty years a Hoopoe was spotted wandering the suburban (and rather lovely) streets of Collingham, Leeds. Being just under half an hour’s drive away I couldn’t resist trying to join the fast-growing group of social media followers lucky enough to encounter this uncommon West Yorkshire appearance!

Despite leading tours and photography workshops I’m actually instinctively quite shy in public and try to avoid drawing attention to myself. So walking around a suburban street with a whopping 500mm lens is not something I particularly relish. But my desire to see (for the first time) and record this unique and exquisite visitor far outweighed any reservations.

It wasn’t long before I caught sight of some fellow Hoopoe questers. It was, however, some 200 metres before I realised I was following them back to their car after they already snapped up their quarry!

With no possibility of styling out my overzealous mistake, I performed an abrupt and unapologetic one-eighty and headed back in the direction they had come. No more than three hundred metres back the other way and I viewed a small (socially distanced) group of young(ish) dudes.

My pulse began to race. I didn’t want to run but at the same time, I didn’t want this rare visitor to fly off before I got there. What’s a “power walk” when you’ve already performed an unbashful u-turn anyway?!

I needn’t have worried though, the Hoopoe stayed, happily crisscrossing an occupied driveway. It remained perfectly at ease; aware of its audience but unperturbed as if it was thinking “well of course you would all drive from across the country to see me“.

The thought of this exotic avian appearing in such an urban landscape, at first seemed (to me at least) surprising. But watching it traverse the driveway, effortlessly plucking out grubs from between the paving slabs, it felt like the bird was in fact purposely adapted for this environment.

I and all the dudes (men and women of varying ages) watched on quietly in a heady cocktail of emotions: excitement, admiration, disbelief and slight embarrassment at the perplexed looks we got off delivery drivers passing by!