A PAIR OF LUCKY BUSTARDS

 My good mate Steve Bool had a job delivering down in Gosport and asked me to accompany him as he was going to look for the Great Bustards on the way back on Salisbury plain. Once again I was delighted that he'd asked me and jumped at the chance to try and see these majestic birds.

The Great Bustard was once a regular breeder but declined to become an extremely rare visitor. Although being associated with farmland it requires large open landscapes, so when landowners started enclosing fields with hedgerows the population plummeted with the last wild breeding individual being collected in 1832 in Suffolk.

The Great Bustard Group (GBG) began it's reintroduction program in 2004 on Salisbury Plain with a 10 year trial licence which was granted by (DEFRA). The GBG imports eggs, raises the chicks, and protects the young before releasing the adult birds into the wild. Breeding was first confirmed in 2009 and by 2019 the GBG achieved it's goal and has a self sustaining population. The Great Bustards are now breeding at a limit where they are self sufficient.

On the day we went the weather was very gloomy with visibility being quite poor. The Bustards were last sighted just off a B, road between Upavon and Enford on Salisbury plain all we had to guide us was this snapshot of a map of the area but with Steve being a Courier and driven all over the country he obviously managed to find the road but where were the birds.

our map

We parked up at a pull in and started scanning the area. We even asked people in the odd car that passed by if they new where the bustards would be but no luck.

We started to walk up the road from where the van was parked, we had seen a Hen Harrier which was in itself a great spot and a few other local species, then all of a sudden from behind me Steve screamed "THERE THEY ARE" and bang! in the distance there were four Great Bustards. We were both to put it mildly over the moon. Steve ran back to the van to get his scope and I started to try and take some pictures, the birds were so distant and the weather so gloomy that the results wasn't great but we had seen them Great Bustards a lifer for both of us.

distant bustards

Steve took a couple of videos through his scope and I some more pictures. When we got back home I did my best to try to edit them to some sort of usable standard. They're not great but for how bad the conditions were not to shabby.

great bustard

and another

we think these are males

Here's one of Steve's short digiscoped videos.

So two lucky old birders taking a chance and coming up trumps. The area is so vast that they could have been anywhere, we both felt so fortunate to have seen them.

the great bustard

A big thank you to Steve Bool once again for taking me with him on which turned out to be an epic trip it was brilliant, until the next one cheers!