It
is really a pleasant experience watching this bird in its natural habitat. It
is indeed an exotic creation of “Mother Nature” with a distinctive colourful
“crown” of feathers. I t belongs to family Upupidae. In English, it is called “onomatopoeic”, like
the Latin name “upupa”, which means the cry of the bird.
The
hoopoe is the national bird of Israel.Hoopoe
belongs to the “clade Coraciiformes”. Nine subspecies has been recorded so far.
Credit goes to Kristin (in the 2001 Handbook of the Birds of the World).
Among them, one insular species, the "Saint Helena hoopoe", is said to be extinct,
and the "Madagascar subspecies" of the hoopoe
is sometimes considered to a full species.
