Reintroducing choughs to Kent

Choughs are specialist soil and dung invertebrate feeders. In other words, they eat insects.

Choughs favour short chalk grassland - a habitat which has declined significantly due to intensive farming resulting in the extinction of wild choughs in Kent. 

For four decades, Kent Wildlife Trust has worked alongside others, including the National Trust and White Cliffs Countryside Partnership, to restore chalk grassland habitat and reintroduce conservation grazing management across East Kent.

Extensive feasibility studies have shown that, thanks to this dedicated restoration work, there is now enough suitable habitat to support the return of wild red-billed choughs to Kent - and we couldn't be more delighted to welcome them back.

Large herbivores once roamed our landscapes. Their grazing behaviours maintain key habitats (such as grassland and heathland) by controlling the spread of certain plant species and allowing many others to thrive.

In order to mimic this ancient activity, we have introduced grazing animals, such as sheep, cattle and ponies, as well as pigs, to many of our reserves. Their grazing and rooting behaviours help to naturally and effectively restore and maintain biodiversity. These animals also provide another service: their dung is home to a variety of invertebrates, all of which are eaten by choughs.

Read more about our Wilder Grazing strategy here

Chough used to be part of this landscape and evolved to coexist with other species such as ravens and peregrines. Although they may compete for some resources such as nest sites, we will monitor this and provide additional nesting opportunities if required.

As a specialist soil and dung invertebrate feeder, choughs are unlikely to outcompete any other species. There are no other species sharing the short grassland habitat which rely solely on soil and dung invertebrates.

Many will know the story of the murder of Thomas Becket. The year 2020 marked 850 years since his dramatic murder, but you may be less familiar with a mythical connection to the chough. 

It is rumoured that as Thomas Becket lay dying, a crow flew down, paddled in his blood and acquired a startling red beak and feet, transforming into a chough.

Sometime after his death, Thomas was attributed a coat of arms featuring three choughs, which first appeared about 100 years later in Canterbury Cathedral, and, in the 14th century, the City of Canterbury adopted a coat of arms with three choughs and a royal lion.

The choughs’ connection to Dover was also immortalised by William Shakespeare who wrote of these charismatic birds in ‘King Lear’. He describes ‘the Crowes and Choughes that wing the midway ayre’, at what became known as ‘Shakespeare Cliff’.