THE CORNISH CHOUGH

This is, I'm sure, just how the battered sign looked - the one that creaked all the way through 'The Turn of the Tide' as it hung on its rusted hinges above Penarren's Patchwork Palace! On the other side it says, of course, 'Try our traditional Cornish pasties!'

But what exactly is a chough?

This special member of the crow family is the emblem of Cornwall. You can see it on the Cornish coat of arms, between the miner's axe and the fisherman's net. It has a red beak, red legs and a distinctive tumbling flight. It's call is - as its name implies - a harsh chee-och sound. Despite its emblematic status, for 50 years it vanished from its own land.

But in 2001, a pair of these birds - perhaps from Brittany - returned to nest again in Cornwall. Great care was taken to guard the site, and the Cornish bird has been able to re-establish itself once again.

And... its posh name is Pyrrhocorax Pyrrhocorax, but don't let that worry you.