All species › Hoopoes and hornbills
Hoopoes and hornbills | Bucerotiformes
Hoppen en neushoornvogels | Abubillas y cálaos
An order held together mainly by molecular evidence: the families placed in it — hoopoes, wood hoopoes and hornbills — look little alike and differ enormously in size. What they do share is a long, downcurved bill that works as a pair of forceps rather than as a crushing tool, short legs, and broad rounded wings giving a flapping, unstreamlined flight. All of them breed in a cavity, in a tree, a rock crevice or a wall, with little or no lining. Prey and fruit are carried to the nest one item at a time in the tip of the bill rather than regurgitated, and the young hatch naked and helpless.
Families in this order
- Hoopoes | Upupidae1 speciesA long, thin, slightly downcurved bill is driven into the soil to the hilt; the bird can force the two halves apart while they are still buried, to seize a beetle grub or a mole cricket, working at the same time with strong, short-clawed feet. The crest is a row of black-tipped feathers that can be raised into a fan and otherwise lies flat along the head. The broad rounded wings are boldly barred black and white and give an undulating, flopping flight that suggests a large butterfly more than a bird. Breeding is in an unlined cavity; the sitting female and the young give off a foul liquid from the preen gland that smells of rotting meat, and the young also squirt their droppings at an intruder.