Inglorious bustards

Attempts to breed great bustards failed but a DNA breakthrough could mean these avian giants will now flourish, says Richard Negus

-  Richard Negus

I never found the 1980s risqué comedian Stan Boardman particularly beguiling. His entire act seemed to consist of two gags. One featured the Focke-Wulf, the other the great bustard. Any interest I had in the Luftwaffe waned when I grew out of Airfix models.

I did, however, always have a sneaking fascination with the world’s heaviest flying bird. During the war my father, an arch naturalist, would daily take the train from Watton to Thetford to go to school. The Breckland landscape he described, through which his train steamed, was a “sea of rabbits, many jet black in color”. His only other notes of interest were “grey partridges aplenty and a handful of roe and fallow, eking out a living among the scrub, sparse grasses, inland sand dunes and swathes of lichen”.

However, a little over 100 years before, he most likely would have been rewarded with the sight of a drove of great bustards in this moonscape too. The Brecks, along with Salisbury Plain, were the strongholds for this 1m tall gamebird. Thetford Warren was the last recorded successful British great bustard nest site in 1832. After this one or two hens struggled on in lonely isolation but, as a breeding species, these magnificent giants ceased to be part of our fauna.

The great bustard is indeed great. A long-lived bird, the cock weighs up to 16kg and boasts a wingspan of more than 2m. The hen bird, in an extreme example of sexual dimorphism, is a quarter of the size of her male counterpart. The bird is a similar shape to a goose but with longer legs and straighter neck.

Great bustards were never a common bird in Britain and appeared to be choosy with their habitat. A mere 17 counties in the UK could lay claim to ever having them as residents.