DSP09509 - Red-billed Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax)
The Chough has a striking long red bill and distinctive shrill call, and feeds on insects in farmland, typically coexisting alongside grazing animals.
Historically, Choughs inhabited several areas of Jersey’s coastline, however changing agricultural practices, especially the abandonment of marginal farmland, led to local extinction sometime around 1900. A similar pattern of local extinction was also recorded in all the other Channel Islands, with the last attempted breeding thought to have occurred in Guernsey in 1929.
The story of decline has been similar across the United Kingdom, and it is thought that there are currently less than 500 pairs of this rare bird in all of the UK and the Isle of Man.
Today, the nearest Chough populations to Jersey are in Brittany, where there are around 50 pairs, Cornwall, where the species appears to be doing well since naturally re-colonising in 2001, and on the Gower Peninsula and Pembrokeshire in Wales.
Sorel, Jersey
DSP09509 - Red-billed Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax)
The Chough has a striking long red bill and distinctive shrill call, and feeds on insects in farmland, typically coexisting alongside grazing animals.
Historically, Choughs inhabited several areas of Jersey’s coastline, however changing agricultural practices, especially the abandonment of marginal farmland, led to local extinction sometime around 1900. A similar pattern of local extinction was also recorded in all the other Channel Islands, with the last attempted breeding thought to have occurred in Guernsey in 1929.
The story of decline has been similar across the United Kingdom, and it is thought that there are currently less than 500 pairs of this rare bird in all of the UK and the Isle of Man.
Today, the nearest Chough populations to Jersey are in Brittany, where there are around 50 pairs, Cornwall, where the species appears to be doing well since naturally re-colonising in 2001, and on the Gower Peninsula and Pembrokeshire in Wales.
Sorel, Jersey