19/06/2024
My camera is dead, but left some good memories
Hoopoe, a bird from the Upupidae family, is widely discussed in folk stories, epics, and religious texts across Asia and Africa. It is listed as an unclean, detested, and forbidden bird in the Old Testament (Leviticus 11), though it is the national bird of Israel. But in the Quran, Hoopoe was the special messenger of King Solomon, the son of David, to the Queen of Sheba. It was also named the wisest bird in the world by the Persian poet Attar of Nishapur. There may be many stories about this beautiful bird with a crown of feathers on three continents. Here in my mountains, a foraging community living on the eastern side has a different story. In this community’s folklore, the hoopoe was once a woodcutter who killed a forest goddess. As a punishment, he was transformed into a hoopoe, reflecting their observation of the bird's behavior pecking with its long beak and linking it to themes of divine retribution and transformation
