Great Bustards - what great birds...

...and thanks to David Waters and The Great Bustard Group they can once again be seen in the UK.

I sketched some of these images of the delightful Fergus at the Andover Hawk Conservancy and finished some in my studio.

Customs & Excise removed Fergus from an illegal collector but sadly a damaged wing meant he could not be returned to the wild.

I was given the opportunity to work with Fergus in his pen (but out of nipping distance!), and observe wild Bustard hens and chicks from the Great Bustard Group's Hide on Salisbury Plain.

At a metre high, with pearl grey neck rising above a russet and black trimmed body with snow-white underparts, the Great Bustard is one of the largest birds able to fly.

On one of my many visits, I was fortunate enough to witness Fergus in full puff-ball display when he twirls his wing feathers backwards and upwards so that all that is visible is a white ball with his breast puffed out and neck swollen so that a blue line appears, and, best of all, his whiskers stand on end. A bird with whiskers? I was hooked!

Here are some on-the-spot sketches and a few finished works:
www.greatbustard.org
www.hawk-conservancy.org