Over the last week or so we have regularly seen what we thought was just one Hoopoe around the house, including this morning sitting on the windowsill (in France,windows open in so the windowsill is outside) about 6 feet from us. He looked very striking with his long beak and upright crest glinting in the early morning sunlight. Unfortunately we couldn't photograph him because as soon as we moved to pick up the camera he flew away onto the front lawn.
Amazingly though, this wasn't the most brilliant Hoopoe sighting that we've had this morning. Later, there was a family group of three Hoopoes on the lawn, picking away at the insects and worms. A Hoopoe lays up to 8 eggs, but we don't know whether these were all juvenile Hoopoes. We'd also love to know whether they have nested here or whether they are just coming here for food.
The good news is that they don't migrate back to Africa for another couple of months so we should get lots more sightings of them.
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