Category: Nature: Birds

Sunday 2nd November 1980

From a Nature Diary, writer unknown:

2nd November [1980]. Went out for ride out to Warminster-Westbury way. Saw group of ten or so pheasants in corner of a field. A kestrel with sunlight feathering through his wings & tail hovered over the road. And saw a great field full of Lapwings, only the white on their heads & bodies showing like white pebbles. Found a toadflax still flowering in full glory on chalk downs.

During 1980, Reg Cundick, quoted the following passage from The Illustrated Book Of Birds:

“Today, north western Africa, the steppes of Western Asia and Asia Minor, as well as certain areas in the farmlands of Central Europe, comprise the range of the Great Bustard. This huge grassland bird used to be far more widespread in Europe, and in the 18th century was found in the British Isles.

It generally stays the winter in its breeding grounds, congregating in small flocks that roam the fields and meadows. In spring the male performs his distinctive courtship display on the ground, inflating his throat pouch and spreading his tail feathers to form a fan so that from a distance he looks like a large black and white dancing ball.

Before pairing, the males fight fiercely among themselves, to win the favour of the hen. Hers is the task, in April or May, of preparing a simple hollow in the corn or tall grass in which she lays two eggs, incubating them for 25 to 28 days. The spotted nestlings are very independent and their diet comprises chiefly insects and later plant foods. Adult birds occasionally catch small invertebrates.

Nowadays the Great Bustard is protected in most of Europe, and an attempt is being made to introduce the species to the British Isles.

Length: Male 102 cms; Female 80 cms.

Wing Span: Up to 240 cms.

Note: The female lacks the moustachial feathers.”

The Illustrated Book Of Birds, text by Dr. J. Felix, illustrations by K. Hiscock. English version first published in 1978 by Octopus Books Limited, 59 Grosvenor Street, London, W.1.

Ralph Whitlock, in his book Wiltshire, published in 1949, noted:

Most Wiltshiremen know something about the Great Bustard, though only a very few globe-trotting expatriates can ever have seen one alive. We have the isolated and historic Bustard Inn, in the very centre of Salisbury Plain, to keep its memory green; and the Salisbury and Blackmore Museum, in St. Ann Street, Salisbury, displays a very fine group of some of the last Bustards shot in Wiltshire. Oldtime sportsmen used to have a great time with the Bustards. Numerous records survive of their Nimrodic exploits.

It is difficult to say how plentiful Bustards ever were in England. There is very little accurate information until about two hundred years ago, and then the general impression seemed to be that they were already becoming scarce. Even in 1534 a law was passed punishing the taking of Bustard’s eggs with imprisonment and a fine (one year in gaol for the offence, and twenty pence fine for each egg taken!). With the improvement in firearms and the increase in the number of people using them for sport, in 1755 a close season, from March 1st to September 1st, was established for the Bustard, making it, I think, the first British bird to have a close season. The Mayor of Salisbury used to reckon to have Bustard as one of the dishes at his inaugural feast, but it must have been considered a luxury, for even in the Sixteenth Century a Bustard cost ten shillings.

In the early eighteen hundreds there are quite a number of written records of Bustards on Salisbury Plain, not because there were more about than formerly but because people were beginning to realise that the bird was disappearing and so took more interest in it. A story I like is the one of how a Bustard attacked a man on a horse near Tilshead in 1801. This bird came flying overhead, alighted just in front of the horse, and went for it! The man jumped off and joined in the fight, and after struggling hard for nearly an hour managed to capture it alive. A Mr. Bartley, of Tilshead, bought the bird and kept it alive for over two months, during the course of which it became so tame that it would eat out of his hand. It ate, so the record says, sparrows (swallowed whole with the feathers on), mice, rape leaves, charlock flowers and other oddments. Eventually the bird was sold to Lord Temple for the sum of thirty guineas, and it would be interesting to know what Lord Temple, having paid all that money for it, did with his Bustard.

While we regret the passing of this remarkable bird, we cannot wonder at it. The Great Bustard is rather bigger than a turkey, a good cock weighing thirty pounds or more. It is a bird of somewhat the same stamp as the turkey, too, having a stout, heavy body, upright stance, sturdy legs and not too adequate wings. Bustards could run very fast, and there has been some controversy as to whether they were ever coursed in England with greyhounds, as records of disputed reliability state. It is obvious, though, that a bird of this size and these habits requires plenty of space, and we can easily see that Britain, after the Middle Ages, became far too tightly packed with people for the Great Bustard to survive.

From The Modern Encyclopedia, published in the early 1930s:

Bustard (Old Fr, bistarde; Lat. avis, bird; tarda, slow). Group of large, stoutly-built birds. The common bustard (otis tarda) was formerly common in Great Britain, but is now only occasionally found in the S. counties. Standing over 3ft. in height, it is a handsome mottled with grey, brown, and black. It lives mainly on corn and young shoots, but will also devour frogs and other small animals. The nest is merely a hollow in the ground.

Frank Heath writing in The Little Guide, Wiltshire, (first published March 1911 – revised by R.L.P. Jowitt, 1949), referring to Salisbury Plain, noted:

Many famous birds, once denizens of the Plain, have now vanished for ever. Chief among these was the bustard, which has not been seen since 1871. Chafin, writing about twenty years before, tells of putting up no less than twenty-five of them at once. There is a stuffed group of them to be seen in the Salisbury Museum.