The bold plan to release Red Kites Milvus milvus on the fringe of urban Tyneside (see Brit. Birds 96: 409) has received a major cash injection with a grant of over £300,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). This, the latest (and possibly the last) of the releases in the English Nature reintroduction scheme, which started in 1989, will take place in the Derwent Valley, in Gateshead. Gateshead Council has pledged £250,000 over five years and Northumbrian Water is putting up £30,000. The HLF's donation of £303,500 takes funding for the project to almost £600,000. The first release of up to 30 young kites is planned for summer 2004, with birds taken from the burgeoning population in the Chilterns. Further releases are planned for 2005 and 2006. Meanwhile, the plan to reintroduce Great Bustards Otis tarda to Salisbury Plain (see Brit. Birds 96: 49) also looks set to go ahead in 2004 after Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) granted the necessary licence for importation of bustard chicks from Russia. The Great Bustard Group plans to bring in 40 chicks each year for ten years in an attempt to establish a viable population in Wiltshire. Modelling studies indicate that Salisbury Plain could support 200 Great Bustards, but the group will be well satisfied if the scheme results in a self-sustaining population of 100 birds.While conservationists celebrate the imminent return of Great Bustards to the UK, the only remaining Great Bustard population in northern Europe faces a growing