A record-breaking number of choughs have made their nests around the Cornish coastline this summer proving the breed is in “robust health”, a bird conservation charity has said.
RSPB England said 161 choughs had been counted in Cornwall – 32 more than the 129 recorded in 2025.
The charity said the new birds came from 56 successful breeding pairs meaning the average productivity of a Cornish chough nest was three fledglings.
It said choughs died out in Cornwall in the 1970s but returned in 2001 when three birds believed to be from Ireland landed at Lizard Point and began the rebreeding of the population.
Peter Hall, a National Trust chough monitoring volunteer on the Lizard, is on his 11th year of monitoring the nest sites.
He said he had not foreseen a time when he would be monitoring so many sites and “certainly not having 16 choughlets fledge”.
Hall said: “The past two winters we have been blessed with chatterings in excess of 20 chough around the Lizard – a far cry from the solitary single pair we had when I started as part of the then nest protection team in 2016.
“Long may the successful return of this iconic Cornish bird delight myself and others.”
The charity said the Lizard was the prime breeding ground for the Cornish chough with 26 chicks, 11 more than 2025, emerging from eight nests on the peninsula.
