h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm happy to see that there's a plan out there for reintroducing Great Bustards to Great Britain.

Pity there isn't a picture to accompany this Entry.

I imagine they look a bit like turkeys.

My point is that on a recent EG Entry on blackbirds, (with which we are all familiar) the Editors saw fit to include a picture (albeit of a female one, which has received some criticism). So one would think that there would be even more justification for including a picture of a bustard, with which very few people are familiar.

Both the Great Bustard site and the BBC news article have photographs of them.
They are bigger than a turkey, with grey/blue plumage on the head and neck, and whiskers!
Last I heard, 20 chicks were in Wiltshire and started on their acclimatisation programme (August) - there were a few notes about this on the last postings of the peer review thread.

Aside* I saw an article just a few days ago, written in the 1950s - which stated then that they were trying to get the reintroduction going, so all in all it seems to really have taken 50 years!

glad to know there are heavy weight flying birds

Ref your post 6 WM, I have a friend who was involved with the earlier(unsuccessful) attempts to reintroduce the Great Bustard. They did work extremely hard at it and are therefore somewhat sceptical of the success of the most recent attempt.

<biggrin)

Did they get very far?

I hope they make the birds wary of foxes now they have banned hunting - but although they are ground dwellers they can fly, ! Our Peacock flew out of danger, but then he roosts up high.

Regret I don't know.I wasn't directly involved in it, as I say, without ultimate success. I know they spent some years at it. I'll try to find out.I think the on-line Salisbury News mentions that they're training the bustard to beware of predators such as foxes. However, presence or absence of fox-hunting would make little difference there because it is a military training ground and the hunt aren't allowed through.

I don't think the fox-hunting lobby made themselves any friends by storming the House of Commons . If I was pro-fox-hunting before, I would probably be against it by now, One just camnnot have morons like that undermining democratic rights and processes .

Hi WM, there are 3 articles in this week's Salisbury Journal, if you'd like to visit 'Salisbury online'. One of them is a letter, recalling the author's recollection that the Great Bustard was re-introduced to Salisbury Plain in the 1970's.

His recollection is from a Giles cartton of the time which had two crows looking on at the new arrivals and saying, "I would consider myself a very silly great bustard making a comeback looking that much like a turkey this side of Christmas"

.

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/wiltshire/archive/2004/09/02/devizes_news_county30ZM.html

Also:

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/wiltshire/salisbury/news/SALIS_NEWS6.html