Choughs and Splutters - the would-be parents' battle

Thurstan Crockett

Cornwall

1 June 2016

Choughs and splutters

The would-be parents’ battle 

Choughs were one of the reasons I moved to Cornwall. For me these stunning birds symbolise wildness and everything I love about the Celtic west and the wild coasts of these islands.  The memory of every sighting in my life is as clear as day - a pair feeding on the cliff tops of Kerry; a surprise visitor - just once in 20 years - to the rock pools of Mullaghmore in Co.Sligo; another’s sharp “chi-ow” call echoing round an old Welsh slate mine; and seeing three more on my very first walk west from our new home village of Porthleven in January last year.  I took it as a sure sign we’d got it right.  There they were above Bullion Cliff in a sunlit field, jabbing the ground for insects with their long curved red bills - the old Cornish name for them, Palores, means “digger”. The name may have been more than descriptive for the Cornish, whose very survival rested as much from digging the land as it did from harvesting the seas; a chough stands on the county's coat of arms alongside the miner and the fisherman, reflecting the bird's importance in Cornish culture.    

For me, sighting three choughs near my home was so significant because there are three Cornish Choughs in the body of the old Crockett coat of arms too.  

Family mottos are believed to have originated as battle cries in medieval times. Unlike of the self-explanatory “One and All” for Cornwall, our family motto is a bit more oblique: “Crow not, Croak not”.  While the chough is part of the Crow family, the declaration here is that we will not brag or boast about our triumphs, but nor will we hold back from speaking our truth; and we emphatically won’t lose in any combat.  This fits the Celts, who still seem more arsey and belligerent - as well as anarchic - than their dominant neighbour here, the English.   It fits choughs too: they get truly arsey, especially in the face of threats to their young, when they defend fiercely and are extremely vocal.  I recently watched  this pair (below) issuing battle cries and swooping determinedly more than 20 times at a raven near their  nest on a dramatic Cornish north coast cliff top. 

In the Cornish chough world, threats seem ever-present.  After the first raven assault, a second raven moved in to divide and rule: they’ll take eggs or chicks if they can. 

Earlier, a peregrine falcon sat calling on the cliff nearby  

and peregrines and buzzards flew over regularly:  predation is a daily - even hourly -possibility.   The raven even jousted with a buzzard for a nearby perch.

Later, as  the first raven settled on a higher vantage point, the chough pair kept flying at it and hounding it:

  

At a different watch on the south coast I saw a pair of peregrines call and one follow a chough in towards the nest zone, before circling it twice, only to be seen off again.  

Last week I monitored another chough nest site, as fog descended and cold rain blew in;   I hunkered down and the chough pair also sat tight - with their chicks to keep them warm - before emerging into better conditions 45 minutes later for a preen, a stretch and some idiosyncratic bill-swiping from side to side, and then flying off for more fodder, noisily and with customary aerobatics - they are so distinctive and entertaining to watch.

Tomorrow I’m off to some new sites for more chough adventures - with fledging imminent, this is an even more crucial time for the red-legged defenders.

All these experiences, as an RSPB/National Trust volunteer,  have been profoundly moving to witness - and all the more remarkable because Cornish Choughs came very close to dying out for good. Due to persecution and then farming changes, choughs in the 20th century declined down to a last breeding pair here in 1947 and a last individual clung on only until 1973. 

Then in 2001, they returned and bred; and thanks to great work by the Trust, the RSPB, farmers and a band of vigilant volunteers, chough numbers are steadily increasing.  This year about ten pairs look likely to breed successfully and overall numbers are creeping up every year, up to about 40 resident birds.   

 Though early days yet, it’s a success story founded on resilience - of the Cornish people against all kinds of threats to their natural environment; of the environmental NGO’s, individual officers and volunteers, all passionate about these birds; and of the choughs themselves:  instinctively driven to breed, to nest in cliff caverns (“zawns” in Cornwall), to nurture and to fiercely defend their young, so they can thrive in their own wild west - a landscape we both love the best.