Re-established Choughs

When I was growing up in the South-West, the Chough was the symbol of Cornwall, featuring on the Coat of Arms for Cornwall Council since the 1930s, but it was extinct in England. However, they are now back in Cornwall and thriving which is one of the best species conservation stories locally, so I just wanted to share a bit of the story of their return.

The Chough is a small, glossy black Corvid, a member of Corvidae family (sometimes called the crow family), most similar to the Jackdaw, but easily distinguished from other corvids by its long, curved, red bill, red legs and entirely black plumage.

Choughs need heavily grazed, close cropped coastal pastures enriched with animal dung and with patches of bare ground where they forage and probe the ground with their long bill for invertebrates such as leatherjackets, beetle larvae and ants. They build nests in small colonies in crevices and fissures, on rock ledges and cliff faces.

The biggest threat to the ecology of Choughs, and the reason for their extinction in England in the first place, is loss of habitat and food sources. So, in the 1980s and ‘90s, the National Trust bought land on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall and begin work to recreate the conditions that once made it home to Choughs.

They worked closely with tenant farmers and other Lizard landowners and reintroduced traditional grazing and scrub management to the clifftops and coastal fields, with sure-footed cattle breeds like Dexters and North Devons joined by moorland ponies looked after by National Trust rangers.

In addition, some of those farms benefited from the DEFRA Countryside Stewardship scheme where guidelines were amended to maximise the potential for restoring good Chough habitat in the region, such as livestock densities and the time of year when grazing animals are present to be adjusted so that the best possible foraging habitats can be created.  

In 2001, three Choughs from Ireland settled on a DEFRA Countryside Stewardship farm on the Lizard (owned by the National Trust) and re-established successful breeding in 2002. Since then, breeding has taken place each year and Cornwall now have a flourishing population of over 400 birds.