Choughs reappear at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall after decades of absence

King Arthur is said to have transformed into a chough when he died, its red feet and beak representing his bloody end Decades after disappearing from the jagged cliffs around Tintagel Castle on the coast of north Cornwall, a bird with legendary connections to the area has returned. The custodian of Tintagel, English Heritage, and local ornithologists have declared that choughs – charismatic corvids with red beaks and feet – are back. Choughs are considered Cornwall’s “national bird” and feature in its coat of arms but vanished as a resident from the far south-west of the UK in the early 1970s, largely because of the decline of their grazed clifftop habitat. Their disappearance was keenly felt across Cornwall but particularly, perhaps, in and around Tintagel because of the bird’s connections to the legend of King Arthur. The once and future king is said to have been conceived at Tintagel and his spirit is said to live on in the shape of a chough, the red feet and beak representing his bloody end. Since the turn of this century, choughs have staged a comeback in Cornwall and English Heritage announced on Thursday that they had made it back to Tintagel. Win Scutt, an English Heritage