Red-billed choughs fly in Jersey!

The first \'wild living\' pair of red-billed choughs in Jersey for 100 years!

That is great news, I read an article about it, and I cant believe that they are finally free. Lets hope they dont fly away!

Lovely birds. They were once found along the rocky coasts of England and Scotland, but only SW Wales and W Ireland have retained any sizeable populations.

It would be wonderful if this species could make a "peregrinesque" recovery to its former levels of abundance.

where were they released in Jersey? North coast by any chance?

The great escape!

And a Peregrine already had a go at one of them! Luckily to no effect.

There are so many raptors and crows up at the release site, it's almost a given that there will be conflicts. The choughs are both smart and fiercely defensive of each other, so obviously, we aren't hugely worried overall.

Seriously though, so many kestrels, p-falcons, marsh harriers and buzzards in Jersey at the moment, it's almost impossible not to see them just driving to work.

Slowly,slowly they are. They colonised (or recolonised) the Gower Peninsula in Wales from nearby Pembrokeshire, about 15 years ago, initially a pair, and there are now 3 or 4 pairs breeding. They are also on the cliffs at Nash Point which is further East, near Porthcawl- these are currently the nearest birds- along the South Welsh coastliine- to England. A few years back five(?) crossed the Severn sea and arrived at or near Brean Down in Somerset one Spring, but they stayed only a few days before returning(?)from whence they came They were identified from colour rings as Gower Peninsula/Pembroke birds I think.

There have been several other instances of unringed birds turning up in the South West of England also, since they recolonised Cornwall. Without rings to identify them its hard to tell just how many individuals, or where they are from- most likely perhaps is Wales.

Somewhere I read it can take up to ten years for subsidiary new pairs to establish and start breeding in new areas, but obviously the Cornish recolonisation has been faster than that.

I would only be worrying about Peregrines. They can and do take them sometimes. Both of the last original Cornish birds were probably taken by Peregrine- the 2nd-to- last one was found decapitated. I guess bonded pairs are too much for a Peregrine to deal with normally though.