Lure of the Stink Cock
By Laura Williams
A Russian photographer pursues a smelly but majestic bird known as the hoopoe
SIX FEATHERY REAR ENDS aim out of a nest in an oak tree and directly at Russian photographer Nikolai Shpilenok, in an adjacent blind. Hurriedly, Shpilenok slides a small pane of glass into a wire clip in front of his face and camera lens. Within seconds, a slew of simultaneous squirts coats the glass in a stinky secretion. Despite the fusillade from the chicks, Shpilenok continues to watch undaunted just inches from the nest. Things could be worse, he knows. The birds are hoopoes, and their mother, who has grown accustomed to the photographer, reserves her foul-smelling firearm for other more menacing foes.
Shpilenok sits in his makeshift blind, erected on stilts next to the old oak, observing the hoopoes in their nest in a hollow tree cavity. At 35, Shpilenok has been photo-graphing wildlife up close for 20 years. Although kingfishers, bee eaters, storks, dragonflies, mosquitoes and ants are all part of his photographic repertoire, the wary hoopoe has been dodging his lens for years. "I have had my eye on this bird for a long time," says Shpilenok, a staff photographer and artist for the Bryansk Forest Nature Reserve in western Russia. "The hoopoe is one of the most beautiful birds I have laid eyes on, and probably the worst smelling, too."
The Bryansk Forest (see "Letters From the Cabin," November/December 2001), where Shpilenok lives, is the northernmost extent of the hoopoe's range, which extends across Europe, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The 12-inch-long migratory bird, distantly related to the kingfisher, flies here for the nesting season from its winter home in Africa. A striking creature, the hoopoe has bright cinnamon pink coloration and a crest of black-tipped feathers that, when erect, resembles an Indian headdress. Black and white bands cross the hoopoe's wings, back and tail. The bird uses its long curved bill to probe the soil and search for insects, which make up the bulk of its diet.
Hoopoes are re-nowned for their stench during the nesting season, a characteristic that has earned them the moniker "stink cock" in Germany. The odor arises from an accumulation of feces in the nest combined with the foul-smelling secretion the bird emits from a preen gland at the base of its tail to deter predators. Hoopoe chicks defend themselves in the nest by hissing at intruders, then squirting liquid feces from their raised cloacae, striking unsuspecting trespassers in the face with remarkable aim. Few predators stick around for more, making the bird's defense mechanism surprisingly effective.
Undeterred by the species' odoriferous reputation, Shpilenok has trailed hoopoes around the woods near his home for the past two years, trying to locate their nests. He found that they prefer hollow cavities in trees, although they are also known to nest on buildings and in the cracks of cliffs in open areas.
In March, before the birds fly in from Africa, Shpilenok prepares observation posts in a dozen snags in the forest where the hoopoes might nest. In the back of each dead tree, he cuts open a small "door" that he can open to view and photograph the contents of the hole and the entrance on the other side.
The hoopoes arrive at the end of April, flooding the forest with their incessant mating calls. "Hoop, hoop, hoop," Shpilenok mimics. "Even the bird's Latin name--Upupa epops--sounds like its repetitive mating call," he observes. By mid-May, most of the birds choose nest cavities and begin to lay their eggs on thin beds of twigs and bits of manure.
Shpilenok gets lucky; hoopoes occupy two of his trees. He waits until the females lay all of their eggs and begin incubating them. Then, under cover of darkness, Shpilenok sets up blinds next to the previously cut doors in two occupied trees, and starts to photograph the birds.
With a flutter of his wings and a low, rasping call, a male hoopoe lands at the rim of the nest cavity, holding a small caterpillar in his curved bill. The female pokes her head out of the hole to greet her mate, opening the brilliant crest of feathers on her head like a fan. Shpilenok snaps the camera shutter.
The female takes the insect from her mate and gives it to a chick covered in white down with emerging pinkish feathers. The five other chicks look on, waiting their turns patiently. She will allocate the smaller insects one by one to her chicks, consuming the larger ones herself. The chicks are two to three weeks old. (The female laid one egg a day for six days, so the first and last chicks are nearly a week apart in age.)
After the male departs, Shpilenok takes a mole cricket out of a jar and opens a small flap in the blind. He rustles his sleeve slightly and makes a low rasping sound in the back of his throat, imitating the subtle sounds the male hoopoe makes when approaching the nest. Shpilenok holds the insect just outside the entrance to the nest. The female pokes her head out and, astonishingly, takes the insect from Shpilenok's hand. She tosses the cricket up into the air before catching it in her bill lengthwise and swallowing it whole.
At first, the hoopoe shied away from Shpilenok's offerings. But after two days, she mustered the courage to take the food from his hand. By imitating the sounds of her mate, perhaps Shpilenok has fooled the female into thinking that he is another male hoopoe. "The male is really jealous--he doesn't stick around the nest for long when I am in the blind," says Shpilenok. "I don't know what he's worried about--he's got better looks."
Generally cautious, the female hoopoe seems less vigilant when nesting. "Nature isn't perfect," says Shpilenok. "Maybe because the hoopoe is extremely careful while on the ground, it lost the ability to remain wary once in the nest."
With his binoculars, Shpilenok spots the male hoopoe poking around in a garden about 100 feet away. Despite its bold coloring, the bird is surprisingly difficult to see against the ground. With his crest laid back, the male probes the earth quickly and efficiently using his long, curved bill. His head resembles a pickax, chipping into the soft earth and searching for crickets, beetles, insect larvae and other prey. He walks quickly as he investigates the soil, bobbing his head up and down with each step like a windup toy.
The bird catches a large mole cricket and holds it tightly in his forcepslike bill. With three quick movements, the hoopoe bangs the insect against the ground, removing its hard parts. Then he spreads his broad, rounded wings and flies toward the nest. His flight is floppy and uneven, resembling that of a giant moth.
Shpilenok sets the binoculars down and folds up a pile of soiled newspapers covering the floor of the blind, laying down fresh ones. The used newspapers are caked in feces and smelly secretions that the apprehensive chicks continuously catapult in his direction.
Says Shpilenok, who has a young daughter, "I feel like I have a six-month-old again. I have to change the diapers in the blind several times a day!"
The nest cavity itself is lined with several weeks' worth of feces and secretions, and reeks. The smell is thought to deter predators; cats and other plunderers are known to avoid hoopoe nests. However, as nineteenth-century German naturalist Alfred Brem noted, the hoopoe's smell wears off a couple of weeks after the birds leave the nest. Brem also remarked that "hoopoes are actually quite tasty."
"I wouldn't want to eat one," says Shpilenok. "Not because they smell, but because now I have come to know them so intimately."
Before long, when the chicks can keep themselves warm, the female will leave the crowded nest and assist her mate in feeding their brood. The chicks will abandon the nest when they are about three weeks old. They will stay close to their parents until the beginning of September, when the whole family will fly to warmer climates for the winter.
As evening draws near, Shpilenok prepares to climb out of the blind. He pauses for a moment to watch a lizard climb up the trunk of the tree and stick its head into the hoopoe's den. The female hisses at the intruder, then abruptly pecks the lizard on the head three times. The poor creature falls limply to the ground.
"I guess she must like me," Shpilenok says of the female hoopoe, "or she would have pecked my eye out by now."
Laura Williams wrote about her husband's efforts to save black stork habitat in Russia in the November/December issue. Nikolai Shpilenok, Williams' brother-in-law, has received two national awards for his nature photography in Russia.
Copyright 2001 National Wildlife Federation. All rights reserved. The above article may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without prior written consent of National Wildlife Federation.