By Local Democracy Reporter Peter Davison
Great Bustard nests have been found for the first time in a vast protected natural landscape between Warminster and Salisbury.
The bustard – the world’s heaviest flying bird – has been Wiltshire’s county emblem since Wiltshire Council was established in 2009.
Having been hunted to extirpation in the 19th century – the last bird was shot in 1832 – the species was secretly reintroduced to the county in 1998 using chicks from Russia.
Cranborne Chase Landscape Trust has confirmed that bustard chicks had been found in the 380 square mile Cranborne Chase National Landscape last May.
Two nests were found in a field of crops north of the Wylye Valley, thanks to the use of drones funded by the government-backed Farming in Protected Landscapes programme.
A farmer informed the Great Bustard Group that he was about to start mowing a crop, and a volunteer team of two set out with the drones as a precautionary exercise.
To their surprise they found two nests. The eggs were rescued under licence, incubated, and hand reared. The birds have since been released back onto Salisbury Plain.
It was a close call for the parent birds – Great Bustards will notoriously sit tight on their nests when threatened, and many birds and eggs have been lost to farm machinery this way in the past.
The trust released a drone image of a bustard sitting on its nest, camouflaged amongst the tall sainfoin crop with its distinctive pink flowers.
There is also a photograph of a single speckled egg in the nest, and a picture of a hand-reared chick.
The Great Bustard Group have spent the winter training volunteers and will be out nest searching again this spring.
Cranborne Chase is a vast area of protected landscape that starts just south of Warminster.
Pictured: A Bustard in its nest
