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  Profile

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  In flight

Game Birds

Little Bustard

Tetrax tetrax

• common
• 28 km/h
• Starter
• Near Threatened

Males inflate their throats and stomp like wind-up toys to attract mates. Lekking, with extra theatre.

Population

Global population estimated at 100,000-499,999 mature individuals (BirdLife International/IUCN 2018 assessment), decreasing overall; European population assessed separately at 122,000-240,000 mature individuals with a 30-49% decline projected over three generations (~31 years); Iberian Peninsula (Spain/Portugal) holds the largest stronghold, France ~2,400-2,500 singing males (3rd-largest Western European population), Kazakhstan ~20,000 individuals in the eastern nucleus; western populations declining faster than eastern ones

Habitat

Open grassland, steppe and pseudo-steppic habitats, and extensive/undisturbed cultivation (cereal crops, fallows, pasture, legume and rapeseed fields) with vegetation tall enough to offer cover but low enough to retain visibility (sources disagree on ideal height: some say up to ~20 cm, others prefer taller than 20 cm); shows some documented tolerance of proximity to buildings, villages and roads (per oiseaux.net) — corrected from an earlier claim that it "avoids" such areas, which was not supported by the sources checked and was directly contradicted by oiseaux.net

Fun fact

The male little bustard performs a flamboyant courtship display of foot-stamping and jumping while making a distinctive low "raspberry-blowing" call, and satellite tracking has shown males are nocturnal migrants that make frequent stopovers in irrigated and non-irrigated croplands.

Range

Breeds across Southern Europe (notably Iberian Peninsula and France, plus Morocco, Sardinia and southern Italy) and Western/Central Asia through Russian and Kazakh steppes (two population nuclei: western Mediterranean and eastern Russia/Kazakhstan); southernmost European populations are largely resident, more easterly/northerly populations migrate south (to the Mediterranean, Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, Azerbaijan) for winter; a rare vagrant to Great Britain despite breeding in nearby France; historically bred as far north as Poland (occasional) and in Hungary (central European population extinct several decades ago) — confirmed via English Wikipedia body text

Diet

Omnivorous: leaves, shoots, flowers, seeds and grain (legumes, brassicas, cereals) plus invertebrates such as beetles and grasshoppers, especially in summer/breeding season; chicks feed almost exclusively on insects/arthropods (especially grasshoppers) for their first days/weeks before shifting to more plant material

Size

0.43 m

Wingspan

0.95 m

Lifespan

21 years