The return of the Great Bustard to Britain would be a major coup for a group of Wiltshire ornithologists who have been championing the cause for many years. LEWIS COWEN reports on the project's progress

WITHIN five years the Great Bustard, which has not been seen in Britain since the early 19th century, could be breeding on Salisbury Plain if the project to reintroduce the species is successful.

The recent granting of a licence to introduce the birds, the heaviest flying bird in the world, by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has opened the gates to the arrival of the chicks from Saratov, in central Russia, next summer.

But members of the Great Bustard Consortium, who are spearheading the project, did not crack open any bottles of bubbly to celebrate the breakthrough. Dave Waters, the former Wiltshire police constable who is managing the project, said: "It had all taken so long that we just thought, about time too, and got on with our work."

But the very fact that it has come so far, with the arrival of the birds just months away, is a tribute to the dedication and determination of the small group.

A previous attempt in the 1970s to breed Great Bustards in captivity came to grief, the surviving birds being sent to spend the rest of their lives at Whipsnade Zoo in Hertfordshire.

The Great Bustard Trust finally decided to wind itself up and held a meeting at the end of 1998 to finally call it a day.

But an impassioned plea from an eminent ornithologist stopped the meeting in its tracks. He said the captive breeding project had never been a proper attempt at reintroducing the species and it should be given another chance.

Mr Waters was there. He said: "I had been in touch with the people on the project since I was 13 or 14 and I knew as much about it as anyone there. I offered to start up a group to look into a reintroduction project.

"I thought one of the big organisations would eventually take it over, but here we are five years later still running the show."

Mr Waters was able to work for Wiltshire police on a part-time basis for three years but in January he resigned from the force to concentrate full-time on the Great Bustard project.

The Great Bustard Consortium,

of which he is project manager, comprises the Great Bustard Group of amateur enthusiasts, of which he is chairman, and a group from Stirling University in Scotland.

Dr Patrick Osborne is a world authority on the Great Bustard, having worked with them in Spain and with the related Hubara Bustard in Saudi Arabia.

But the birds that will hopefully recolonise Salisbury Plain come from neither of these areas, but from Saratov, on the Russian Steppes.

The chicks will have been hatched from nests abandoned by female bustards when the local farmers' chain harrows get too close to them. The Steppe was largely ploughed up in the 1970s and, despite farmers' efforts not to disturb the birds, between 500 and 1,000 eggs are run over and smashed each year.

Every effort is being made not to imprint the newly-hatched chicks on humans, which makes for some comical situations. The chicks have to be shown how to eat by their mothers or they will starve, and glove puppets in the shape of female bustards have been made to educate them with the minimum of human contact.

Workers on the project have to dress up in special suits to avoid any contact between birds and bird carers.

But if the project succeeds, it will be a major coup for the Wiltshire ornithologists. Mr Waters said: "No one has ever introduced the Great Bustard to a new site, so there is no manual to read up about it. We are writing the book."

Critics ask where reintroductions will end following successfully reintroduced species like the White Tailed Sea Eagle and the Red Kite.

Mr Waters has an answer for that."It ends with the Great Bustard. It is the last species that was native to Britain but has died out. It would be a major achievement for it to live and breed again in the UK."

There are already plans for a visitor centre close to the area where the Great Bustard is being released. Breeding could take place much earlier than five years from the first releases but if, after ten years, no little British Bustards have hatched and survived, then the project will be wound up.

The reintroduction is just part of a wider scheme, called Sustain the Plain, to reinvigorate conservation projects in the area and make it more accessible to visitors and local people.

Mr Waters said: "You go into any tourist information centre in the county and you will find information about Longleat and Stonehenge, but nothing about the Plain. Hopefully, that is all about to change."