Chough Coastal Colony — Lizard Peninsula

Each spring and summer, the clifftop grasslands of the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall host the only breeding choughs in England — a population recolonised naturally from Wales in 2002 after a 50-year absence — creating one of British conservation's most celebrated recent success stories and providing a wildlife encounter of considerable rarity with this spectacular red-billed crow on England's most southerly mainland. The chough's acrobatic cliffside flight — the birds tumbling and diving in the updrafts above the Lizard's serpentine sea cliffs with their curved red bills catching the sunlight — is one of the most exciting corvid displays in Europe, and the birds' confiding behaviour around the traditional cattle-grazed coastal turf where they probe for invertebrates allows extended close observation. The Lizard's unique geology — the largest outcrop of serpentinite rock in Britain — creates a purple-green coastal heathland flora found nowhere else in England, and the combination of the rare geology, endemic plants, and the chough creates a wildlife and botanical experience of considerable scientific distinctiveness. RSPB wardens provide telescopes at the Kynance Cove viewpoint during the breeding season, and the birds' nest sites on the sea cliffs below are sometimes visible from the coast path. The chough family parties in late summer, with recently fledged young birds still showing their coral-red bills and legs, create the most accessible and endearing chough encounters.