What the heck is a lek?
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
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A quarryman was working in Portland, sweating under the hot sun. He could see down to where King George III was bathing at Weymouth. ‘I wish I were a king!’ he cried. There was a clap of thunder and suddenly the quarryman was king! But when’ve you had a taste of power, it’s never enough. The new king looked up one day at the sun and thought the sun was more powerful than him. ‘I wish I was the sun!’ And suddenly he was! But some things are more powerful than the sun. ‘I wish I were a cloud!’ He rained storms on the earth. But he saw rivers wrecking even more havoc, and so a river he became. As he rolled down to the sea, he saw a great rock and was forced to go around it. He wished to be the rock and he was content. But one day he felt a chipping on his shoulder. He was being quarried, by a quarryman! He wished – and was the very self he had been when he started.
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!