The lovable killer

Starting a blog and then falling silent for three months is probably not the best way of attracting readers. I will try to be more productive in the future, but I guess the readers of this blog will understand that spring and the beginning of summer is a hectic time for an ornithologist and, I'm afraid, writing a blog in English is far from priority.

The peak of the breeding season has passed, reports for various counts and studies (almost) completed, so why not return to my blog. And this time, though to some extent I continue the topic of death, I decided to write something optimistic and focus on my pet project: research of Hoopoes.

From the strategic point of view Hoopoe is downright unimportant species for bird conservation in Latvia. Though the bird is rare (160-250 breeding pairs) and therefore it is included in the national list of specially protected species, the breeding population is doing fine. The rarity of the species is simply due to the fact that Latvia lies almost on the northern border of the range of Hoopoe (north from us they breed only in Estonia). Being common elsewhere Hoopoe is also not listed in the Annex I of Birds Directive (i.e., it is not a specially protected species in European Union). So, yes, my research of this species is just following birder's heart rather than conservationist's mind. This is also the reason why I dedicate my spare time rather than working hours to this activity.

Hoopoe is a nasty bird. Its habit of killing and eating other small animals (mainly insects but also frogs, lizards etc.) alone might make it 'bad' for some people (though probably not gardeners who might value Hoopoe's taste for mole crickets). Hoopoes, unlike many other animals, also tend to fight savagely amongst themselves. This year, when I was catching Hoopoes using a polystyrene decoy (to equip the birds with geolocators), my decoy bird was mutilated and raped by the Hoopoes I was trying to attract. Family planning is also not the nicest feature of this bird: Hoopoes lay a lot of eggs, but as the young hatch asynchronously, if the season is bad, the younger nestlings die. For some reason Latvians have also called Hoopoe 'Hunger Cuckoo' and regarded the bird a bad omen.

But the beauty of the bird makes up for it all. With its striking black-white-and-buff plumage, long beak and erectable crest Hoopoe stands out in the northern community of 'small grey birds'. In Latvia the fact that the species is rather rare also helps it ensure people's affections. No wonder I have never had a problem of finding someone to help me ring Hoopoe nestlings and my inbox is full of messages from people overjoyed to have seen Hoopoe.

I first met Hoopoe when I was a child and saw the bird several times in the vicinity of my home on the outskirts of Riga, but the relationship grew serious during my final years in school when, while doing my research for school (back then students had an option to do it, now they have to), I learned that the vicinity of Balozi, a small town just next to Riga, is one of the best breeding areas for Hoopoe in Latvia. The small gardens established on abandoned peat extraction sites offer Hoopoe excellent opportunities for foraging and breeding (the gardens are full of nestboxes for Starlings).

Hoopoes don't like company and I must admit I don't enjoy it too much either, that is one of the reasons why since 2006 my main study area is a 'quieter' place: military training area Adazi. The place is quieter in the sense that there are less people there, but, as it is still an active military area there is, of course, much noise. However, it doesn't seem to bother birds very much. The original cover of pine forests is stripped to bare sand but what might seem as a devastation has in the long (more than 80) years of military activity become a special place of nature (the military area is also Natura 2000 site), and also Hoopoe. The sandy plains are suitable foraging grounds but the concrete buildings and ruins scattered in the area are excellent nest sites.

Since 2006 thanks to the idea and work of the late Arnis Berzins additional nest sites - nestboxes - have been supplied for Hoopoes breeding in Adazi. Now when the original nest sites (buildings and ruins) are planned for removal, providing Hoopoes with nestboxes has proven to be a good idea. The nestboxes have also been a good way of getting more insight into the little known breeding biology of the Hoopoes of Latvia. For one thing the breeding season turned out to be much longer that thought before: the first eggs can be laid in the end of April but the last nestlings fledge in the beginning of August. This year my colleague Ieva Mardega, analysing the records of ringed Hoopoes in the nestboxes for European Rollers, confirmed what I had long suspected: Hoopoes can have two broods per season also as far north as Latvia.

This year my little pet project gained some international importance thanks to Rien van Wijk, a Dutch colleague working on Hoopoes in Switzerland. He contacted me asking if I would be willing to cooperate to study migration patterns of Hoopoes by equipping the birds with geolocators. A geolocator is not a transmitter. It is a small device recording the time of day and the intensity of light, and using these data an approximate location of the bird can be calculated. However, to get the data the bird has to be caught again and the geolocator has to be taken off. So this year we catch the birds the first time and hope for luck next year. Then we will find if the Hoopoes from Latvia use the same migration routes and wintering areas as the birds from Switzerland.

Hoopoes will still be in Latvia for a couple of months (and I still have some birds to catch to get to 25 as I have promised Rien), but I guess winter is the time when I really feel that Hoopoe is more than just a study object for me. Every winter for several years now there comes a moment when I realize that I really miss these nasty but lovable birds.