As some regular readers may remember back in June I visited the Great Bustard Group’s bustard release-site on Salisbury Plain to talk to the GBG’s Director David Waters.

I wrote the the post that follows for the GBG blog and it appeared on there a few days ago. I hope it’ll be of some interest to at least a few 10,000 Birds readers - even if just because it goes some way to explaining to some old friends of mine what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks…

On December 17th we held our annual Grand Auction at Kensington’s splendid Royal Geographical Society (RGS). With a truly remarkable selection of lots on offer*, we had our fingers crossed for a decent turn-out despite it quickly turning into a very cold night indeed.

However we needn’t have been concerned: hosted by David Bond, Chairman of the Great Bustard Group’s trustees, attended by a coterie of our finest (and finest-dressed!) supporters, and managed by GBG Director David Waters with two bus-loads of GBG staff and volunteers, the event was (to quote David Bond) “a resounding success”.

How much of that was to do with the well-stocked and superbly-staffed bar (thanks Rebecca Waters, Hannah Rose and Mary Walden) we can only make an educated guess, but the evening did go extremely smoothly from start to finish. Short speeches by the two Davids (Messrs Bond and Waters) were well-received, membership forms were handed out and accepted from the get-go, and the reception room we used looked fantastic, thanks in part to new promotional displays created by our colleagues Suzy Elkins and Alex Stott of AA1 Media Ltd (who also proved to be very enthusiastic balloon-blowers, a skill not noted on their website despite the obvious financial opportunities as party organisers!).

Suzy Elkins finishes off the centre-piece of our display

Thanks bar-staff!

A selection of ‘Bustard with Mustard’ Cheese handmade by GBG supporters
Gwyn and Ness Williams of Loosehanger Cheeses

GBG Director David Waters works the crowd!

Cheers…

As the first heavy snowfall of the winter fell outside turning London into an ice-rink (which was all very Christmassy even if it probably did stop a few supporters making it to the Auction), bidders inside the RGS snapped up remarkable bargains including a Mantis Collection Safari in South Africa, a stay at the fabulous Carlisle Bay Hotel in Antigua, a one night stay at any von Essen UK hotel, and fishing packages on some of the UK’s most exclusive beats. One lucky father will even wake up on Christmas Day to learn that his son has paid for him to have a ‘non-intrusive vasectomy’ courtesy of Gordon Muir, a consultant urological surgeon working at King’s College Hospital (a lot which went - BOOM BOOM - for a snip)!

Head of Trustees David Bond explains the GBG’s mission…

…and GBG’s Director David Waters adds some technical details

Like to guess who’s father is getting an unusual Christmas present this year
(the clue is in the ’snip’ hand signal…)?

After the auction and further visits to the bar (apparently some of the red wine drunk by attendees came direct from the Big Brother House!) the evening’s festivities climaxed with the cutting of a superb and delicious Great Bustard Group cake designed by Ruth Manvell which your roving correspondent ate far too much of (tonight wasn’t a night to be worried about calories though). By about 21:00 most of our guests had departed into a decidedly chilly night, and we were packed up and heading back to Wiltshire about an hour later.

We’ll have details of how much was raised by the event in the near future and hopefully put some names to the guests we photographed (perhaps as photographer and blogger I should have concentrated less on cake and more on taking names but we’ll try to track everyone down), but our most sincere thanks go to everyone who attended and who bid - your donations/contributions are extremely important to the GBG and will help us continue our operations into the future, assuring a future in the UK for Otis tarda, the magnificent Great Bustard.

The reason for the event and all the hard work!

*The full compliment of lots on offer can be found on the GBG website.

For more information - particularly on the science behind the project - please visit the Great Bustard Group’s website at http://www.greatbustard.com

Visitors are welcome to the site by prior arrangement with David. There is a small charge which is used to support the project. Contact David Waters by email at visit - AT - greatbustard.com (or me at the usual email address if you’d like me to help arrange a day out for you which includes birding in Wiltshire).

It is VERY important that birders do NOT go onto the site by themselves by the way - not only will the Bustards (who are naturally very wary of people) be disturbed, but the site is owned by the Ministry of Defence: there are unexploded tank shells and other ordnance lying around Salisbury Plain, and the Army does not take kindly to people walking around their land blowing themselves up…