Chuffed to Bits

I’m Cornish, raised on stories of Piskies, Buccas and Spriggans.  And of the Cornish chough - the almost mythical bird which appears on the Cornish coat of arms.

A small member of the crow family with a distinctive red bill and legs, the chough had become extinct in Cornwall due to loss of habitat.  When I was a child, the only choughs left in Cornwall were a couple of depressed specimens in a cage in Newquay Zoo.

However, just a few years ago, birds from Ireland or Wales colonised Kynance Cove, to the far West of Cornwall.

When in Cornwall, my priority is to spend time with my parents so getting to Kynance Cove slipped from one year’s to-do list to another’s.  I never would see a Cornish chough.

However, this year, so as not to expose my parents to any risk of Covid, Nigel and I booked holiday accommodation near Truro and, in between family visits, walked the coast.

On the very first day at Trevellas Cove (many miles from Kynance), a high pitched ‘Keeaugh, keeaugh’ made me look hard at a quartet of crows.  In fact only three were crows, the fourth bird, smaller and more delicate, was a chough.  I was beyond excited.  However, the crows were bullying this lone bird.   We visited Trevellas twice more, but saw no chough. 

Finally on the penultimate day, we walked a particularly rugged section of cliff path between Porthtowan and Portreath.  ‘Keeaugh, keeaugh’ first a pair, and later, a small group of choughs reminding me of porpoises as they flew away.  The choughs here were not being attacked by crows, and looked settled.

How did I feel about my first sightings of the legendary bird of Cornwall? 

Chuffed to bits of course.

(With thanks to Pascoe and Richard for the sophisticated pun)