17th February 2010
Hanging on the Telephone
Blondie
The unexpected makes the Day sometimes. The plan for the day had been to cycle to Figsbury Rings, a superb iron age hill fort NE of Salisbury.
After seeing this I hoped to find Winterbourne Downs RSPB reserve; cycle to Stonehenge and marvel at the stones then continue the day looking over Normanton Downs RSPB reserve and finish at Old Sarum, another amazing historical site. How did it all go? Unexpectedly.
Figsbury Rings were
magnificent, an almost circular hill fort system and so large with a brilliant deep
surrounding ditch. Winterbourne Downs RSPB Reserve, well I did not get there
until 12:30 p.m. because I was the wrong side of Porton Down. The road to
Porton was closed for total re-surfacing. There's only one 'B' road across
through the Porton Down defence area and the workers would not let me push the
bike over the muddy grass adjacent to the road because of 'health & safety'
reasons. They were very apologetic over it but intransigent to my saying that I
would have a ten mile detour because of this.
Later, after negotiating a new route around
Porton, I had just had some sort of fighter jet come extremely noisily low over
my head when my mobile phone rang.
“Will
you visit the Great Bustard Group?”
“No
Way. It is miles away!” came my reply.
“Yes,
but they've got your friend's bird.” “What?”
A phone call from the wonderful Lynn had me
in tears as it turned out that my dear late friend Gordon Barnes' Great
Bustard, one that he found whilst a crofter on Fair Isle, was at the Great
Bustard Group's site at Winterbourne Gunner.
Back in 1970 Gordon found the female Great
Bustard and had looked after it for much of that winter, feeding her mice and
cabbage as the bird regained her strength. The bird was then taken to be part
of the first attempt at Great Bustard reintroduction on Salisbury Plain. Indeed
it became such a celebrity that the great cartoonist Giles featured it in one
of his creations.
The failure of the first attempt prompted
Gordon's bustard to be captured and put into Whipsnade Zoo, where she ran into
a fence and died! That was the last that Gordon ever heard of the bird. Giles'
comment on his cartoon, about it being bad news for a bird to look like an
overgrown turkey being around so near to Christmas, was not to be the fate of
the bird. Instead it was given to a taxidermist and stuffed in quite a
different way! Somehow, after so many years, the stuffed female Great Bustard
had found her way to the Great Bustard Group on Salisbury Plain and went on
display there. I just had to see her!
With such serious motivation to go the extra
mile, I started to cycle towards their centre as fast as my legs would go. It
seemed to take forever but eventually I made it. Gordon was a fabulous person
and I was so lucky to have known him and to have been able to call him friend.
Gordon sadly died a few years ago after a holiday birding with his wife, Perry
in Luxor, Egypt. I wanted desperately to see Gordon's bird.
On the way down the stony lane to get to the
caravan and huts that made up the centre,
a huge male Great Bustard flew over me, landed on a hill to the left and
joined four other bustards strutting around on the hillside. In fact I was so
enamoured by the sight of such magnificent birds, one of the heaviest flying
birds in the world, that I almost fell off when cycling into a very deep
puddle. I was told later that the bridleway was actually an old riverbed and
flooded frequently.
Well, I only had eyes for these birds and at
the end of the lane I wondered where the Great Bustard Group centre was. I
phoned and received a reply, “turn around and have a look!” I had cycled past
two very obvious land rovers and the Great Bustard Group centre. There were
also two obvious people waving in my direction.
I returned up the track to meet Alasdair Dawes and Lynn, two charmingly fantastic people and together we pieced together some of the story of the stuffed female bustard. Photographs were taken, especially ones of me with Gordon's bird. I do not think the tears in my eyes were too noticeable but they flowed as I remembered my dearest of friends.
There was the promise of Gordon's photographs
of him with the bird to be sent for display. Then it was pressie time. I
particularly treasured the Great Bustard Project mug they gave me as a
souvenir. I have it still, unused and special; a reminder of a wonderful day
and of a fabulous friend.
Now here is the question -
could I count the eventual seven Great Bustards on my non-motorised year list?
It would make it 141. I said that it was still considered 'plastic'. That is
rather an unkind way of saying that birders did not count it as a true wild
bird yet. Here are some comments from friends whom I contacted via text to
discuss such an issue:-
"No way - are you counting plastic stuff now?"
"Can you count things with wing tags?"
"You have no morals - you'll get an extra fifty species at Slimbridge at
this rate."
Alasdair wanted me to make it bird number 141. I did not! I could not.
Eventually I got to Stonehenge just as the
light was fading and I rode as far as I could along the western edge of
Normanton Down RSPB Reserve. Red-legged Partridge, Pheasant, Lapwing and Little
Owl were all calling but really it was too dark by now to see anything but the
beautiful crescent Moon, Orion with the Dog Star and Mars amongst the stars.
It
is a shame it was not light as a map of each released Great Bustards, given to
me at the centre, told of two stationed on the Downs. Once dark though, cycling
became impossible along the bridleway so pushing was the order of the day until
the main road was reached about a mile or so further on.
On making the road, with the bike clogged up
with thick mud, I had a quick rest and ate the last of my evening meal
comprising a couple of slices of malt loaf.
On getting back to the
Youth Hostel in Salisbury at 8:10 p.m. I drank a cup of their hot chocolate, I
talked about and I reflected on such an unexpected event, Gordon's Great
Bustard. A great bird found by a great man almost forty years ago to the day.
Tears flowed as I thought about the dearest of friend I had lost. As always
with a death, it is the sad thought that the conversation has finished, never
again to hear Gordon’s soft Brummie voice.
50.64 miles
2155 feet elevation up & down
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