Kent chuffed to welcome back choughs 200 years on

The chough, a charismatic cliff-dwelling corvid, has bred in Kent for the first time in two centuries.

- Patrick Barkham

A young pair among eight birds released last year defied expectations to successfully breed this summer, making a nest on Dover Castle and rearing one chick, which fledged in June.

The milestone is an unexpectedly early success for the long-term project to bring the red-billed birds back to the Kent coastline.

According to Kentish legend, the chough (pronounced "chuff") obtained its bright red beak and legs by wading in the blood of Thomas Becket, the archbishop murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights from Henry II's household.

But the species vanished from England, mostly because of changing farming practices, until three birds arrived on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall in 2001. Since then, concerted efforts to restore suitable beetle-rich habitat have meant numbers have soared to 200 birds in Cornwall, with a record 113 chicks fledging in 2023. Choughs have also bred in Jersey.