Holiday Day1 Bustards!

First day of our two stop Holiday (Somerset then Cornwall) as we headed down to Somerset, a stop on Salisbury Plain, to try and see the Great Bustards that have been the subject of  a reintroduction project since 1998, seemed a good idea. Well be rude not to really!

 See details of the reintroduction  at the link!

Bustard Restore

Sadly we didn't have time to join an official tour, but a tip off from another birder gave some idea of where to look! We crawled along a pretty dodgy road manfully ignoring the "unexploded  ordnance" and "Tanks Crossing" signs to reach the spot😱😱. We scanned the wide open fields, not much to see, I tried to string some very distant (approx 3miles away) Pheasants into Bustards, didn't see much else, a few Stonechats, couple of Linnets flocks, some Meadow Pipits, however I persevered scanning with the scope until we spotted a group of Birders in a Land Rover and looked where they were looking and bingo, Great Bustards!! Hurrah!! Apparently the population is now self-sustaining, so I'm ticking em😀!!

Initially they were quite distant
 

We drove down the road, into a dip, looking up into the field we were much closer but a strange angle looking up at the birds, the following pictures were taken from the car no birds were disturbed, there were a couple of walkers having a picnic even closer and the birds seemed oblivious! Was quite strange, one minute you would look at the field and it would appear empty, next minute there would be 10 heads popping up like little periscopes!!

Great Periscope

We were also treated to an impromptu air display, presumably a team practising but it was very impressive!

We continued to our base near Ilminster in Somerset, complete with Hot Tub (sorry ladies no pictures) loads of Hirundines flying around which made for a nice end to the day!

Swallow, usual problems with light and incompetence 

House Martin

Robin

House Martin

 A Good start to our trip!! Margie made a new friend, Timmy the Tortoise, it's older than me!!

The view from the digs!

So an excellent start to proceedings!!