Alpine chough
Pyrrhocorax graculus
— Where the name comes from
Pyrrhocorax is “fire crow”, from pyrrhós and kórax, referring to the red of the bill and legs, the only coloured thing on an otherwise entirely black animal. Graculus was the Latin name of a black bird like a jackdaw, onomatopoeic in origin, and it is the same word behind the Italian gracchiare, to caw. Above two thousand metres, it is the sound one hears most.
— Facts
- Group
- Birds · Aves
- Order
- Passerines
- Habitat
- Rock faces, ridges, mountain huts and ski stations at altitude
- Range
- Mountains of southern Europe, North Africa and Asia to the Himalaya
- Size
- 36–39 cm, wingspan 65–74 cm, 160–250 g
- Diet
- Insects, berries, scraps left by walkers
- Lifespan
- 10 years in the wild
— Characteristics
- 01
It nests in rock crevices at over six thousand metres.
- 02
It rides updraughts and drops in dives for what looks like pleasure.
- 03
It follows paths and hut tables in noisy parties.
— What sets it apart
It is the highest-nesting bird in the world. Nests have been found in the Himalaya above six thousand metres, and birds in flight have been seen on Everest above eight thousand: air in which a climber without oxygen takes five steps and stops. Nobody quite knows how it manages, because at that height the air should be far too thin for the wings of a two-hundred-gram crow to work; but the choughs follow expeditions up to the high camps and wait for somebody to open a rucksack.
