By Charlotte Dean

Public sightings

The public of Jersey have been giving us lots of sightings of the choughs as they move around the Island which is brilliant. One of the most popular spots the choughs are using as foraging habitat is Les Landes Common and Racecourse. Some of those choughs identified as using these spots are Trevor, Noirmont, Minty, Rey, Lee & Cauvette. But very often there are more than 20 choughs there at a time. It’s not surprising that they use Les Landes as a foraging spot as, as well as cattle, there are the horses that use the racecourse, all providing the choughs with dung, which may be alive with lots of tasty larvae for the choughs to consume.

Chough activity update from Simon Sand & Gravel Limited

Last year we had a chough pair, identified as Danny & Jaune, building a nest within the Simon Sand & Gravel Ltd site in St Ouen’s Bay. We’ve kept in contact with this company as choughs do generally nest each year in the same or similar areas. Last year, this pair didn’t get too far with their breeding situation. They managed to start building a nest between them, but unfortunately another (unknown) species took over their nest. This year we were informed of a pair roosting in the roof/overhang of one of their buildings but after a few days of them roosting there, they hadn’t seen them since. So it could be that they’ve found somewhere else to nest nearby. The chough team will be searching for their new nest site area. Furthermore, if this pair successfully breed, it won’t only be their first true breeding year, it’ll also be our second pair to produce real ‘wild’ chicks (chicks from a pair that were both hatched themselves wildly).

The results are in!

The results are in for the five juveniles which had the pleasure of having their blood tested for the reasoning of finding out their sexes. In November tests were taken on Birch, Sallow, Willow, Pine and Liberty. Birch, fledged from Dusty & Chickay’s nest, has been ‘playing the field’ so to speak with some of the females in the flock and it’s good to see that Birch is in fact a male. Sallow, fledged from Kevin & Wally’s nest, has stopped showing an interest in Portelet but has moved on to Archirondel and is also a male. Willow, Pine and Liberty are all females. Willow, fledging from Green & Pyrrho’s brood, Pine from Percy & Icho’s, Liberty from Kevin & Wally’s. It seems that last year’s sex ratio is looking pretty even so far. Hopefully, when the rest of the 2022 juveniles are tested, we will see some more males!