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Tetrax tetrax Little Bustard Outarde canepetière
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Arrêté du 9 juillet 1999 (liste des espèces de vertébrés protégés, menacés d’extinction en France
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Photo. Male Little Bustard, France
Photo. Little Bustard Chicks, France
Range: Historically the Little Bustard inhabited a vast range from Portugal to the extreme Northwest of China but after large population declines in the late 19th and 20th centuries it became extinct in many countries and today two distinct breeding populations remain, a western one with Portugal, Spain, France, Sardinia and the extreme Southeast of Italy; and an eastern one in South-eastern Russia and Kazakhstan.
Problems:
The main problems for this bird are changes in agriculture and agricultural practices; originally it was a bird that inhabited steppe like regions and the cereal plains of Poitou-Charentes fall into this category. This was fine when the principle crops were dry cultivated cereals, alfalfa and legumes interspersed with grazing and fallow, but times have changed, new crops mature and are harvested earlier destroying the chicks which are on the ground, pesticides substantially reduce food supply for the chicks that escape the blades, and grazing on the plains has all but disappeared.Solutions: An action plan Tetrax tetrax under EU regulation 2078/92 is having some success working with local farmers in promoting alfalfa growing and delayed mowing and five sites on the plains of Niort sud-est, Mirebalais et du Neuvillois, Mothe-Saint-Heray-Lezay, Barbezieres a Gourville and Nere a Bresdon have been given Natura2000 status where funding is available to farmers who participate in agri-environment schemes. Predation of the eggs is another concern with such a fragile population and some success has been achieved by removing the eggs from the nests and replacing them with “dummies” the genuine eggs being incubated elsewhere and reintroduced later.
Photo. Little Bustard Nest with eggs, France
About the Little Bustard: The Little Bustard is quite a large bird at 44 cm, (that’s about Crow size), rather shy with a tendency to crouch down and lie flat in ground cover when disturbed. It is fully migratory in this region with the majority of the birds over wintering in Spain. It has a method of reproduction that is extremely rare in the bird world and when in April the birds arrive at the breeding sites the males form small groups where they begin their extraordinary mating rituals, leaping up and down hammering the ground with wings extended, neck feathers fluffed out in a large ruff while at the same time making their distinctive chant. The females visit the males display area to choose a male to breed with, this makes the males even more excited; then the female makes her choice and coupling takes place – this is all she will have to do with the male, she then departs, prepares her own “nest” site, which is a small hollow in the ground, incubates and raises her chicks with no further assistance or contact with the male.
Sites of importance for the Little Bustard from Natura2000
http://natura2000.ecologie.gouv.fr/
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