{"id":250607,"date":"2026-01-25T04:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T04:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/250607\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T04:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T04:28:10","slug":"bustards-nest-found-in-cranborne-chase-for-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/250607\/","title":{"rendered":"Bustards nest found in Cranborne Chase for first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Peter DavisonLocal Democracy Reporting Service<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768389368_961_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/071facc0-f958-11f0-871d-ed45692ef541.png.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Cranborne Chase National Landscape A great bustard chick is pictured on what appears to be artificial grass. It is a beige colour with darker brown markings and brown eyes.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Cranborne Chase National Landscape<\/p>\n<p>Great bustard nests were found in the Cranborne National Landscape last year<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Great bustard nests have been found for the first time on Cranborne Chase.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">This week, Cranborne Chase Landscape Trust confirmed that bustard chicks had been found in the designated National Landscape last May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The bustard &#8211; the world&#8217;s heaviest flying bird &#8211; was hunted to extinction in the 19th century, but the species was secretly reintroduced to Wiltshire in 1998 using chicks from Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The two new nests were found in a field of sainfoin north of the Wylyle Valley, after a farmer informed the Great Bustard Group (GBG) that he was about to start mowing a crop.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768389368_961_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/f7b81a30-f946-11f0-83df-25b52b98173b.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Cranborne Chase Landscape Trust A drone image of a bustard sitting on its nest, which is nestled in a sainfoin crop.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Cranborne Chase Landscape Trust<\/p>\n<p>Cranborne Chase Landscape Trust released this image of a bustard sitting on its nest<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Since 2004, the GBG has released hundreds of chicks on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">As a precaution, two volunteers used drones funded by the government-backed Farming in Protected Landscapes programme to check the field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The eggs were rescued under licence, incubated and hand-reared. The birds have since been released back onto nearby Salisbury Plain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The trust released a drone image of a bustard sitting on its nest, camouflaged amongst the tall crop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;What it shows is the slow, but steady, expansion of the breeding range of the great bustard &#8211; and that the bustards had a good year last year,&#8221; said David Waters from the GBG.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The bird has been Wiltshire&#8217;s county emblem since Wiltshire Council was established in 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Speaking to BBC Radio Wiltshire, Waters said the UK population, which is all in Wiltshire, are doing well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;The numbers are going up slowly. But in the rest of the world, many of the Great Bustard species are not doing well,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;They&#8217;re the only bird in the UK which is globally endangered.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter DavisonLocal Democracy Reporting Service Cranborne Chase National Landscape Great bustard nests were found in the Cranborne National&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-250607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}