Hard work chasing choughs is rewarded with close encounter

THE wind grabbed my shoulders while the gorse tugged my laces and clawed my legs. But I wouldn’t be held back. I was on a chough chase.

They had arrowed over my left shoulder. Five in formation against the gusting north-easterly, their cry announcing their arrival.

It has become a call and response: they shout “chee-ow”, I shout “chough” and instantly scan the sky for the jet-black bird with the red legs and bill.

In recent years a pair have been a regular sight along this mile-and-a-half stretch of the North Cornwall coast where gorse and heather give way to the moonscape of the old Wheal Charlotte copper and tin mine between Porthtowan and Chapel Porth.

This summer the family doubled in size, the pair becoming one of 23 to breed successfully in the county, producing 66 chough lets.

A fifth member then joined our flock and, just a few weeks ago, unperturbed by walkers and their dogs, they squabbled over the best grubs and bugs in the loose earth at the side of the coast path.

Choughs had vanished from these parts 40 years ago as cliff grazing went out of fashion and their habitat became too overgrown, but Cornwall’s national bird is back and happy for us to know it.

Like a big-time footballer returning to their hometown club – chests puffed out and with a swagger – they know they are a fan favourite in these parts.

But this time they were playing hard to get and the thrill of the chase gave way to disappointment. Three more times I heard “chee-ow” above the hiss of the sea and the rush of the wind, but it was only as I turned inland towards home that two paused briefly alongside me at head height. A flash of those red stockings and they were gone again.