From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

Guest Post by Ian Magness

Now, as anyone who has ever seen one (and they are pretty common around the Mediterranean) can attest, the hoopoe is a most striking bird, unique in colour and shape. Furthermore, they feed on open ground and are happy in parks, gardens and golf courses, so they are easy to find. This is not, therefore, one of those birds that is likely to sneak into and roam around Britain unseen, especially in modern times when so many more people watch birds. Records can thus be viewed as pretty reliable. So, what do the facts tell us?

Points are as follows:

– Hoopoes have been seen visiting Britain for hundreds of years. They are scarce vagrants, generally appearing pre- (spring, especially) or post- nesting periods (autumn) as the birds either seek breeding opportunities or disperse away from their nesting areas. Southern and eastern Britain sightings predominate but they have been spotted all over the British Isles. Very occasional birds have attempted to nest and some have done so successfully. Never in recorded history, however, has there ever been a viable British breeding population. As Coward put it in 1925: “To our knowledge, it has been striving to establish itself for two and a half centuries”.

– Birds of Wiltshire goes into some detail about the growth and decline of hoopoe sightings and nesting. Essentially, it reports that hoopoes had a pretty comprehensive European breeding range – south to north – historically. The range contracted more toward its southern heartland, however, between the mid-19^th and mid-20^th centuries and appears to have been pretty stable since. The reasons are not known but habitat (and thus food) loss is implicated. This is the opposite of what you would expect from global warming.

– In line with the decline noted above, the number of successful British hoopoe nests (never more than a great rarity) all but disappeared by the mid-1970s. To my knowledge (I could of course be wrong), there have been no successful British nests in the 21^st century.

– Britishbirds.co.uk reports total annual sightings since the late 1960s to 2021 as being between around 100 and 150 (albeit that some of these would likely be the same birds moving around). Importantly, when looking at “Trend” in the sightings, the site states “None”.

Conclusions

The Daily Mail article contains the following statement:

“Due to global warming, scientists believe the hoopoe may set up home on British shores, with scores of sightings being reported every year.”

1) Yes, there are scores of sightings in Britain each year but twas always thus and there is no trend whatsoever. No doubt there were more birds around in Victorian and Georgian times when the hoopoe range allowed more northerly birds to come across the seas to visit Britain more easily. That would have facilitated some breeding but there has been little or none over the last 50 years or so.

2) As for “Due to global warming, scientists believe the hoopoe may set up home on British shores” – frankly, it is hard to be polite because this is demonstrable rubbish. What “scientists”? What data? Where? Are we expecting a Mediterranean climate any time soon?

This just looks like yet another example of a journalist being fed some puerile climate story that would have taken five minutes of research to rebuff. Whatever drives UK and European populations of the magnificent hoopoe, there is no evidence that anthropogenic climate change (even if such exists) has played the slightest part.

References

Coward’s “The Birds of the British Isles and their Eggs” 1925

Wiltshire Ornithological Society’s “Birds of Wiltshire” 2007

https://britishbirds.co.uk