Decades after disappearing from the cliffs around Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, choughs—charismatic corvids with red beaks and feet—have returned, English Heritage and local ornithologists have announced.
Choughs are considered Cornwall's national bird and feature on its coat of arms, but they vanished from the far south-west of the UK in the early 1970s, largely due to the decline of their grazed clifftop habitat. Their return to Tintagel is particularly significant because of the bird's legendary connection to King Arthur, who is said to have transformed into a chough upon his death, with its red feet and beak representing his bloody end.
Win Scutt, an English Heritage curator, said: 'People have told stories for centuries about choughs at Tintagel, so to see them here again, a place so bound up with the legend of Arthur, feels extraordinary. It's a rare moment where nature and myth seem to meet.' Christina Hazel, a visitor assistant at Tintagel, added: 'We started with one male and now have three birds that visit.'
Hilary Mitchell of Cornwall Birds said the Tintagel birds are the furthest north and east in Cornwall, and hopes they will spread into north Devon and Somerset. The chough population revival began after a pair arrived from Ireland on the Lizard peninsula in 2001. The RSPB notes that choughs were historically persecuted, with folklore claiming they got their red legs from paddling in the blood of Thomas Becket.
