Choughs at The Lizard

Despite the less than ideal weather forecast for Wednesday 7th June, especially for the afternoon, we (Mavis, Mike and myself) headed down to The Lizard in Cornwall for a days birding. On arriving we bought some pasties for lunch in the village before driving down to the car park near the lighthouse to start our walk where the sky was increasingly darkening and the wind was increasingly strengthening.

We headed down to the watchpoint near the old lifeboat station, noting a raven, jackdaws, carrion crows and magpies along the way but no choughs. At the watchpoint the wildlife guide informed us that the choughs were no longer nesting in the cliffs above the lifeboat station but were now nesting in the cliffs to the east although they were occassionally seen flying over - not what we were expecting.

With the recent wet and windy weather and the strong breeze developing we did some scanning offshore and picked up a continous movement of Manx shearwaters heading west although later in the day smaller numbers were also noted heading east. Gannets of various ages and plumages, kittiwakes including a few immatures, fulmars and guillemots were also picked up while close to shore herring gulls, great black backed gulls, cormorants and shags were seen.

 Gannets

Gannets

Rock pipits were songflighting along the cliffs and a brief call overhead gave away the position of 2 choughs flying over and heading inland, distant views but we were very pleased to see them.

 Oystercatchers

 Mesembryanthemum on the cliffs

Mesembryanthemum

We walked west along the coastal footpath, noting a buzzard, a pair of stonechats, a collared dove, whitethroats, a male blackbird and linnets along the way and we managed to get another distant view of a flyover chough briefly calling and giving its position away.

Back at the watchpoint we found a bench overlooking the cliffs to eat our lunch and to admire the views and as we tucked in to our pasties 2 choughs flew over and landed on the cliffs to feed - result! We had some lovely views of them feeding on the cliffs just below the footpath where passing walkers were oblivious to their prescence, both appeared to be unringed birds and were unfortunately mostly silent before 1 bird flew off west which was soon followed by the second bird a few minutes later - but with a tasty pasty, stunning sea views with passing gannets and Manx shearwaters, good company and feeding choughs on the cliffs lunch doesn't get much better than that!

 Choughs

 Chough

 Chough

 Chough

Chough

We continued our walk along the clifftops to the east where a male kestrel was hunting below the lighthouse, holding stationary in the wind and not having to hover, and we saw more whitethroats and another male stonechat and a passing peregrine. We heard and then saw the 2 choughs again before they flew off inland and we had a chat with a chough watcher volunteer keeping an eye on the nest site - apparently there are 2 chicks this year in the nest and they are due to fledge fairly soon.

 Kestrel

 Kestrel

 Flyover Helicopter from  nearby RNAS Culdrose

 Choughs

 Choughs

Chough - record flight shot

We headed back to the car as the clouds looked increasingly rainy and as we drove home the heavens opened but we had had a great day out with some nice views of the choughs, one of my favourite birds.

 Interesting Chimney Pots at The Lighthouse

 Lizard Lighthouse

Chimney Pots