Choughed To Have Young

The chough (pronounced ‘chuff’), our rarest breeding bird, bred this summer on Rathlin Island, producing three healthy fledglings.

This is the first successful nesting attempt in Northern Ireland for three years. A member of the crow family, the chough is a glossy black bird with a curved red beak and red legs. Named for its call, the chough’s buoyant, acrobatic flight marks it out on its cliff-top home.

In the 1960’s, there were 22 breeding pairs of chough in Northern Ireland, 12 of which were on Rathlin Island, once a stronghold for the species. By the late 1990’s, numbers had fallen to just one breeding pair on the Causeway Coast. Environment & Heritage Service (EHS) and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) carried out research to find out what farms and fields, the chough used to their advantage. Then in an effort to hold on to this remaining pair, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) developed an agri-environment scheme option to encourage the chough, and other coastal birds, to nest and breed along the coastline.

Chough feed mostly on soil insects or in cattle dung, supplementing their diet with spilt grain from stubble fields in winter. The agri-environment scheme option encourages mixed farming, creating a range of habitats from sheep-grazed cliff slopes to seed-rich stubbles.

There has been a real partnership approach to bringing back the chough. Land along the north coast is being managed by farmers and the National Trust under DARD’s agri-environment schemes. RSPB are monitoring the last remaining pair.

This pair clung on at the Causeway coast, fledging a total of seven young between 2002 and 2004, but with no successful breeding taking place in 2005 and 2006. This year, a pair of chough, quite possibly the Causeway pair; were seen at a traditional nest site on Rathlin Island. A close watch was kept on the nest site and on 11 June, RSPB recorded a party of two adults and three young in the skies over Rathlin; the first breeding there in 18 years. This is encouraging news which will aid the tough target in the NI Chough Species Action Plan to restore the breeding population to at least 1982 levels (9 – 10 breeding pairs) by 2010.

DARD Minister, Michelle Gildernew, commented, “I am very encouraged by the return of the chough to breeding sites on Rathlin Island. Farmers have been working closely with DARD, the RSPB and the National Trust along the north coast to help safeguard the chough. As part of our shared heritage, it’s our responsibility to ensure that there is a future for this beautiful bird here, a symbol of our coastline”.