13th July - Sennen Cove, Cornwall

A much better forecast today had us travelling west from Carbis Bay towards the village of Sennen Cove, as we came down from the A30 into the village we could see the bay of sweeping golden sand against a background of deep blue sea.

Sennen Cove is situated just around the corner from Land's End, the most westerly point in mainland Britain. Whilst the village sits in the lee of the mighty Pedn-men-du headland the large crescent of sandy beach faces the full force of the Atlantic Ocean making it a popular spot for surfers. 

The beach at Sennen Cove is called Whitesands Bay and it almost lives up to this name with almost a mile of fine sand stretching around to neighbouring Gwenver beach. Near the middle of the beach a shallow valley with a small stream runs down to the sea. The sand dunes here offer shelter and it is generally a little quieter on the far side of the stream.

Many years ago, Helen had holidayed here at a surfing camp known as Skewjack and this was the chance for her to re-live and reminisce in a location that has hardly changed.

We had decided to walk the one and a half miles to Land's End along the coastal path.  as we approached the lifeboat station, there was a collection of gulls on the rocks.  At first I thought these were Black-headed, but as I got closer it was clear they were Mediterranean Gulls

After walking through the village the path heads up steps to the Look-out Point.  As we climbed the path I noticed a pair of black birds on the short grass on the cliff tops.  I had hoped I would find them here.

I scrambled up the cliff to get a better view, but they two birds flew off and dropped from sight on the rocks below.  I hung about to see if they would return, but they didn't so we decided to walk on, hoping that we would come across them again.

Pretty soon the Longships Lighthouse came into view just off the coast of Land's End

The top of the cliffs was covered in Bell Heather and the colourful flowers produced a wonderful scene, complementing the deep blue of the sea and sky.

One butterfly that is associated with Bell Heather at this time of year is the Silver-studded Blue and I found several, but with their flight season coming to an end they were in a sorry state.

Some more views of the Lighthouse and the western tip of the England at Land's End.

And another appreciation of the carpet of Bell Heather on the cliff top.

Small Streams made their way to the sea, crossing the path and flowing through the bracken.  At one such stream a male Beautiful Demoiselle sat on a frond of the bracken, not something you would expect to find on an exposed cliff top.

We stopped to check black birds on the cliff top, but they turned out to be Jackdaws.  However below us were a family of recently fledged Kestrels all calling to the parents to be feed.

Quite happy to sit and wait and watch the scenery.

Another view looking back towards the north east and the headland that is Cape Cornwall.  In the early 19th century this headland was thought to be the most westerly point of Cornwall.  There was a tin mine on the cape, which was operated intermittently between 1838 and 1883. The mine's 1864 chimney near the peak of the cape was retained as an aid to navigation. In the early 20th-century, the former ore dressing floors were for a time converted for use as greenhouses and wineries.

In 1987, the mine site was purchased by the H. J. Heinz Company of the United States (and British plants) and donated to the nation.

 

Whilst Land's End was very busy we were able to find somewhere away from others to sit and drink a coffee.  We were surrounded by more gorgeous Bell Heather.

Setting off back to Sennen we started to lose the sunshine as cloud rolled in from the west, offshore a large rain cloud could be seen heading east, but fortunately away from us.  From the cliffs we could see guillemots and Razorbills and the odd Fulmar wheeling around the cliff face.  The most numerous birds were corvids, Crows and Jackdaws with a pair of Ravens announcing their presence with their familiar calls.  This on calling from the rocks at the base of the cliffs.

As we became closer to Sennen and the Look Out post we started to see the Chough once again and this time they were more confiding and providing some great views.

While its black plumage identifies it as a crow, the chough has a red bill and legs unlike any other member of the crow family. It is restricted to the west of the British Isles.

It readily displays its mastery of flight with wonderful aerial displays of diving and swooping. 

The chough lives on short, grazed grassland and coastal heathland where it probes the ground with its long, red bill for insects, such as leatherjackets and beetle larvae. It has a 'chee-ow' call which is similar to, but louder than, the Jackdaw's.

The chough's symbolism for Cornwall can be easily found for it features on the coat of arms, proudly sitting on top of the crest flanked by a tin miner and fisherman as a striking reminder of Cornwall’s proud traditions. 

The chough's Cornish name, Palores, means Digger, a reference no doubt to its habit of digging away at loose soil to find invertebrates.

In Wales and Scotland during the 17th Century, where choughs would also have been common, the chough was known as the Crow of Cornwall. Legend has it that the soul of King Arthur departed this world in the form of a chough, its red feet and bill signifying Arthur's violent and bloody end.

Feeding amongst the thrift on the slope of the cliff two birds were constantly probing the soil and pushing the bill into the rock crevices.  As a result the red bill was sometimes covered in mud.  This is my favourite photo on the portfolio.

Several naturalists were already noting the decline of the chough in Cornwall at the end of the 18th century. They were concerned that choughs were suffering at the hands of sportsmen and suppliers of natural history specimens.

However, trophy hunters were not the only problem. The steady degradation of the chough's preferred habitat - grazed cliffs and heathland - played a major part in the demise of the chough in Cornwall. In past centuries, sheep, cattle and ponies would have grazed the cliffs all year round, keeping vegetation short and open, providing perfect conditions for chough to find a supply of insects such as cranefly larvae, dung beetles and ants.

The removal of stock to inland pastures, where they could be managed more easily, meant the cliff slopes soon scrubbed over and choughs found it increasingly difficult to find suitable feeding areas. Nesting had all but ceased in south Cornwall and the Lizard by the mid 1800s and by 1910, the chough had disappeared from all southern coastal counties of the UK with the exception of Cornwall, but even here there was concern that it was doomed to extinction, with reports that former haunts on the north coast remained unfrequented.

The year 1947 saw the last successful nesting attempt in Cornwall. An ageing pair of choughs lived near Newquay between 1960–1967 but one of the pair was found dead in March 1967. Its partner patrolled the cliffs alone until 1973 when it too, the last of the Cornish choughs, was seen no more.

For the next 28 years, choughs remained absent from Cornwall; the only recorded sightings being of a few birds passing through or escaped from captivity. 2001 changed all that with the natural return of choughs to Cornwall.

In 2001 a pair of Chough naturally appeared on the Lizard, then in  2002, the pair successfully fledged three young and choughs have bred every year since. !n 2022, 25 pairs of Cornish Chough were found to have been successful, raising over 70 young, bringing the current population to around 200 birds!

The Chough can be seen all over Cornwall with small populations now on the mid and North Cornwall coast as their range continues to grow.  A huge achievement for a bird once extinct in Cornwall but even greater against a backdrop of decreasing chough populations elsewhere in the UK.  Not all the young will survive to adulthood and raise families themselves but the higher the number of chicks that survive each year the more robust the birds become against extinction in the future.

I had hoped to find this enigmatic bird on this trip.  My views on previous visits have been fleeting and a trip to Pembroke a few years ago provided better but distant views.  Today the Chough delivered.