BIRD experts are delighted after a rare stone curlew raised near Micheldever has been spotted alive and well.

The one-year-old fledgling was seen last week at Porton Down on Salisbury Plain.

The stone curlew is one of Britain's most endangered birds with only 357 breeding pairs in the UK, including 19 in Hampshire.

Phil Sheldrake, project manager for the RSPB Wessex Stone Curlew Project, said: "It is fantastic news. These birds are very rare which is why we are doing all we can to conserve them."

The elusive bird nests on the ground and is charcterised by long yellow legs and big eyes.

Numbers have dramatically declined because of a change of land use with dry open grassland making way for farmers' fields and forestry land.

Micheldever is included in a Government-funded conservation project run by the RSPB and Natural England since the 1980s.

Between one and three pairs of the stone curlew have been discovered on chalk downland near Micheldever Station.

The birds were part of the Dever Society's environmental objections to the building of a eco-town of 12,500 new homes on the countryside site.

Local farmers are working with the RSPB to provide potential nesting sites in the area to encourage other pairs to stay and breed.

This year, a nesting pair of stone curlew hatched two eggs but the chicks disappeared before they could be ringed by RSPB workers to identify them.

Mr Sheldrake added: "We know the nest hatched but we didn't catch up with the chicks.

"It is impossible to say what happened, but we can only be confident the birds survived if we see them again.

"We have to assume the worst although they could have wandered off. It is very frustrating with such a small population in this area."