Great Bustard (Otis tarda)

Id: Unmistakable huge ground bird; flies magnificently, with majestic slow, powerful wing-beats.

On a few favoured plains and fields in undisturbed parts of Europe, male Great Bustards stand in scattered groups and perform one of the most eye-catching displays of any bird anywhere. With a few contortions of wing and tail, they transform themselves from a large brown bird into a seething mass of white feathers, recalling, as has been irresistibly suggested, a foam bath. With no vocal accompaniment, and just the odd stamp of the feet, dominant males show off in this way to females. These performances are part of what is known as a dispersed lek. It is a communal show, attracting many visiting females in search of the best mates. Normally on a lek the female simply makes a bee-line for the central territory and mates with the incumbent, but at the Great Bustard’s dispersed lek the males wander around, so the females must assess them on their performance alone.

From ‘Birds: A Complete Guide to All British and European Species’, by Dominic Couzens. Published by Collins and reproduced with permission.