Hoopoe from The Conference of the Birds

This weekend's Venus Uprising show, "The Zoo" is going beautifully with many great dancers in a thoughtfully planned show. Because many people have asked, "What is a hoopoe?," I'm offering the following description. The bird appears in Farid Ud-din Attar's 12th century Sufi text "The Conference of the Birds." In that text, the hoopoe leads a band of birds in search of the mythical Simorgh. After discipline and travail, each bird learns the Simorgh must be found within her own yearning and within the yearning of those traveling alongside her. In the picture, taken from Wikipedia, the hoopoe is center right, a small bird with a blackish wing and a dotted crown.