Little Bustard (BBRC)

Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax

Vagrant. Southern Europe.

The first record for the county was of one shot in a turnip field on Welbourn Heath, south of Lincoln, on January 30th, 1854. A further five individuals have occurred, four of which were also shot: two in the nineteenth century and three in the twentieth, with none since 1955. The record dated as 'pre-1990' came to light in the Lincolnshire Bird Report for 1992 as reported by G. P. Catley:  One shot at Charity Farm, near Westwoodside in the Isle of Axholme, prior to 1890 was presented to the Doncaster Museum in 1942 and is still on display where it was recognised in 1977 and photographed'. This was an addition to the 1989 text in Lorand & Atkin.

Caton Haigh reported the Little Bustard which was shot at Black House Farm, Addlethorpe, by Mr. W. J. Cook, of Skegness, on November 22nd, 1933 and which was subsequently kept in cold storage until it was sent to the Museum. On dissection, it proved to be a female with the following measurements: length 17 inches, wing 9¾ inches, tarsus 2½ inches, spread of wing 34 inches. It was subsequently sent to Mr. H. F. Witherby, who identified it as belonging to the eastern form O. t. orientalis (note: modern taxonomy has since evidenced this species as being monotypic).

The lack of recent records presumably reflects the declining population trend in continental Europe and matches the frequency of occurrence in Britain as a whole: some 183 records are known up to 1949 but only 29 since then up to 2020; only five of these have been in the most recent twenty-year period. The last two records were in 2015 and 2019, both in Yorkshire so there may be some reward in searching the rolling fields of the Wolds in autumn especially.

Reference

Redshaw, E.J. (1955). Personal notes on the sighting of a Little Bustard at Surfleet Cheal, December 25th 1955 (on file).

(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included September 2022)