Blogger: Jane Warren, Regional Development Officer
If the idea that there’s a bird called a hoopoe is strange enough, how about a giant hoopoe? Odd as it may seem, a giant hoopoe (Upupa antaios) has found its way to my house - by way of a print from the recent Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition at the Rochelle School in London. All we know of this flightless bird’s existence is from a partial, fossilised skeleton found on its only home, the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. It probably became extinct soon after Saint Helena was colonised in the early 16th century, lost to introduced species like black rats and destruction of habitat. The giant hoopoe’s closest living relative is - you’ve guessed it - the hoopoe (Upupa epops). This is a bird with a definite ‘wow’ factor.
We occasionally get to see them on the south coast of England in the spring, as single birds migrating from North Africa to Europe overshoot their destination. We can only imagine how remarkable the giant version would have been.
Seeing and experiencing the Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition provoked a strange mixture of emotions. It was actually uplifting to see how these 120 artists had so beautifully risen to the challenge of bringing to life these ‘gone birds’. At the same time, it was a sobering reminder of all that the world has lost, in a relatively short space of time, due to man’s impact. The giant hoopoe now hanging on my wall is calling me to action. The exhibition is raising money for BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions programme. For more information on what we can all do to stop more birds going extinct, see the exhibition web pages at www.ghostsofgonebirds.com and BirdLife International at www.birdlife.org.