First they steal our pasties,
then mess up our cream teas, but they'd better not claim our birds!
12:36, 29 MAR 2018
UPDATED12:39, 29 MAR 2018
The Cornish national bird, the
chough, which stands proud on Cornwall's coat of arms after returning to the
duchy 17 years ago, has crossed the Tamar into Devon.
Ornithologists say choughs have
been spotted along the North Devon coast
and say it's a very promising revelation for the endangered species.
A pair of choughs suddenly and
mysteriously appeared on the Lizard in
2001 after a 54-year absence – and ever since then they’ve been clinging on by
the slightest of claw-holds.
DNA testing has now discovered
that those first birds probably came from Southern Ireland. Their Cornish
numbers have slowly increased – there are believed to be around 15 breeding
pairs of the rare bird west of the Tamar today – but the choughs are not
exactly turning the clifftops black.
However, the reason the
appearance of choughs on the North Devon coast is being regarded as such good
news is that it takes the Cornish colony a big step closer to Wales, which is
where far larger groups of choughs exist along the sea-coasts. Indeed, DNA
testing carried out eight years ago discovered that the first of the new wave
of choughs seen in North Devon were from the Welsh colonies.
Claire Mucklow from the RSPB
said: “Having choughs resident again in North Devon will help bridge the gap
between the populations in South Wales and Cornwall and help the choughs to
thrive.”
The chough is included in
Cornwall's coat of arms alongside the miner and the fisherman, reflecting the
bird's importance in Cornish culture.
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