There is a bird out there that’ll make your heart sing, as everything about it oozes character, style and charm. Yet you’ll probably hardly ever notice it, because from a distance it looks just like any other crow. I am, of course, talking about the clown of the crow family, the chough.
Before we go any further, for those who don’t know, it’s pronounced ‘chuff’. It’s a medium-sized member of the crow family, a bit bigger than a jackdaw, having a wingspan of around 80cm. Both sexes look alike, their plumage being a tantalisingly glossy black that gives the impression of a luxuriant purply sheen. Those wings are long for the size of the body, being rounded at the ends with deep fingers (gaps between the primary feathers) that turn upwards slightly in flight.
It’s up-close that you realise this isn’t any ordinary corvid. They have bright red legs and a downward curving red bill. The colour combo is that simple – lots of black, with just enough red to get away with being one of the more stylish crows. Seen close, they’re super easy to identify. There is one caveat though, as the young birds have a shorter, yellow bill.
It’s commonly thought that the name chough is onomatopoeic (a direct description of the sound it makes). Choughs actually make a sound more like a ‘chiow’ – imagine it high pitched, descending in tone and remarkably loud. Chough actually describes the call of a jackdaw and was, in years gone by, and in many parts of the country, the name for a jackdaw. Cornwall was one such area, calling jackdaws ‘choughs’ and coughs Cornish choughs. Confusingly, both birds were often seen together. Anyway, the name jackdaw won out nationally and the other name for a jackdaw become the sole name of the chough.
There are only around 350 breeding pairs of choughs in Britain, and all of those are in the west of the country, with the Welsh population being the most stable. Sea cliffs, quarries and, of course, mountains are the domain of the chough. It’s the quieter parts of Eryi (Snowdonia) where you’re likely to see a chough among the mountains. Though more commonly associated with sea-cliff sites, choughs, in my humble opinion, suit the mountains even more. They are, after all, superb in the air – pulling gliding, soaring, diving and rolling moves with ease. It’s as if they wrote the book on aerobatics. They’re sensitive to human disturbance and are, of course, a protected species.
Choughs pair for life. They nest away from
