A GREAT bustard, originally released on Salisbury Plain, has been spotted on the northern Channel Island of Alderney for the first time.

The female bird, one of around 80 released on a Ministry of Defence-owned site on the plain, was first thought by islanders to be a goose.

It was successfully identified by the Alderney Wildlife group, which had been tailing the bird for several days.

David Waters, a former policeman, founded the Great Bustard Group in 1998 and has dedicated his time to reintroducing the bird which was hunted to extinction in the UK in 1832.

This year the group, which has RSPB support, switched from releasing Russian bustards to Spanish ones this year partly because they turned out to be more genetically similar to those wiped out here.

Mr Waters said: “It was not a great surprise to us that one has been spotted in the Channel Islands as others released here have been previously spotted in France.

“We think it is one of the Spanish birds released earlier this year.”