From our own observations, and from information posted
to the sightings blog or provided to us directly, it is evident that choughs have had a very good breeding season this year. We haven’t added up
the number of young yet but, along the mainland coast, it looks like it's been a bumper year in terms of breeding success and productivity.
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| A very noisy youngster pursuing one of its parents for another meal! |
- Most territories were occupied in 2020;
- At least two, usually three or four (and in some places
five) young have fledged from many of the nest sites for which we have
data;
- Nest failures at mainland sites appear to have been
very low this year;
- The warm, mostly settled weather in April and May
undoubtedly helped breeders and non-breeders; the rain arrived in June in
time to stave off food shortages that may have affected productivity (and immediate
post-fledging survival) had the very dry weather persisted;
- There were several flocks of non-breeders on the coast
during the spring. These ranged from between seven and 19 birds,
suggesting good winter survival and a reasonably healthy non-breeding
population.
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| This female (ringed as a nestling in Ceredigion in 2014) bred successfully for the first time at Castlemartin this year. Here she is carefully preening the head feathers of one of her two offspring |
We would very much like to thank contributors to the blog site for your posted comments on chough this spring/summer, and also those who
contacted us directly by email etc. This information has been a considerably valuable in this difficult year.
Jane, Bob and Annie.