The Eurasian Hoopoe in Provence - Part 1: Finding a mate 

The Hoopoe (Upupa epops) is a migratory bird that winters in Africa and returns to European breeding sites in the spring to nest. When the breeding season starts, the male utters its insistent song in the early morning, from a high perch, to attract females. Females select males that use long strophes in their songs because the male‘s strophe length is correlated with a measurement of his condition and does not depend on its age.
Incubation normally starts between the first and third egg, and now the female will remain in the nest. From then on, the male stops singing and goes in search for food to feed the female regularly.
The chicks are brooded by the female for between 9 to 14 days. It is common with Hoopoes that males other than the nest owners help feeding the nesting female and chicks or defend the nest. Most of these relationships are apparently attempts by visitor males to obtain copulations with paired females, or to obtain access to such females or nests in future breeding attempts.
Here an unpaired male tries to feed the female in the nest, without success.
Function of song in the Hoopoe Upupa epops:
M. Martín-Vivaldi , J.J. Palomino & M. Soler (1999) Function of song in the
Hoopoe Upupaepops, Bird Study, 46:1, 104-111, DOI: 10.1080/00063659909461120
doi.org/10.108...
van Wijk et al. (2018) Diverse migration strategies in hoopoes (Upupa epops) lead to weak spatial but strong temporal connectivity - The Science of Nature 105:42
doi.org/10.100...
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The Eurasian Hoopoe in Provence - Part 1: Finding a mate
• The Eurasian Hoopoe in...
The Eurasian Hoopoe in Provence - Part 2 First brood in Spring
• The Eurasian Hoopoe in...
The Eurasian Hoopoe in Provence - Part 3 : Second brood
• The Eurasian Hoopoe in...
The Eurasian Hoopoe in Provence - Part 4 : Feeding second brood in the nest
• The Eurasian Hoopoe in...