We used to look down, he said, from the house on the Sky Road beyond Clifden and see the choughs that nested in the ruins of the old coastguard station, rooting with their lovely slender beaks in the field for their worms or whatever. Choughs (and the sound they make is not altogether unlike their name - "chuff", from memory, though Cabot in his Irish Birds makes it out to be "kweeaw"). But before you follow their habits, you are struck by their appearance - slightly smaller version of the rook, but easily distinguished by the red bill and legs. The bill, too, is different - finer and curved.
There was a recent article in the London Times in which Ian Mitchell was accusing the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) of scaremongering in launching an Emergency Chough Appeal. The appeal went: "This tumbling acrobat off windy clifftops is down to 250 pairs: with your help we can save the chough from being pushed closer to the brink of extinction." Presumably the 250 pairs is for all of Britain. They are not "down" to 250 pairs but up to about 250 pairs from 200 pairs 20 years ago, according to Mitchell, and possibly half that number in the 1960s. Worldwide, he pointed out, the figures are good.
As you might have thought, one man to have good information and opinions on the bird is Lloyd Praeger in his classic The Way That I Went. He had been writing on the raven: "Its delightful cousin the chough also is holding its own well. Though occasionally seen inland, rocky coasts are the places it loves, and it may be seen in every maritime county in Ireland from Antrim around the west and south to Wexford." (Remember his book came out in 1939.) He goes on: "With its bright red legs and beak, alert movements and cheerful sharp notes, its beautiful flight, and the delight it seems to take in playing in the air, it is a welcome sight wherever found; fortunately it is not a shy bird, and you may with care easily get the opportunity of making its near acquaintance. The chough makes an excellent pet, becoming very tame; I remember an old bird on Inishmore 30 years ago that made friends with everybody; there was not a boat that came into the harbour of Kilronan of which she did not know the cabins or engine room."
The birds which must have moved on from that site beneath the Sky Road when new buildings went up, doubtless shifted along the peninsula and even to the islands. David Cabot tells us that "the chough is an Irish speciality. As its population is relatively large, widespread and expanding. In 1992, 2,633 birds (906 pairs and 821 other birds) were counted." Long live the cheerful, colourful and acrobatic choughs.