Red-billed chough
Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax
— Where the name comes from
Pyrrhocorax joins the Greek pyrrhós, “flame-coloured”, and kórax, “raven”: “the red raven”, for its long, curved bill and coral-red legs, as the Italian name also says. Gracchio imitates its call, a shrill cry very different from the deep croak of ravens.
— Facts
- Group
- Birds · Aves
- Order
- Passerines
- Habitat
- Sea cliffs and mountain pasture with short grass
- Range
- Western and southern Europe, North Africa, Central Asia to the Himalaya, Ethiopia
- Size
- 39–40 cm, 260–380 g
- Diet
- Insects and larvae dug from the ground, ants, some seeds
- Lifespan
- A few years on average, about 17 the record
— Characteristics
- 01
It is all glossy black with coral-red bill and legs.
- 02
In flight it performs acrobatics and dives in the updraughts along cliffs.
- 03
In the Himalaya it nests above five thousand metres.
— What sets it apart
It lives thanks to sheep. It looks for insects by digging in short grass, and grass stays short only where animals graze: when coastal and mountain pastures were abandoned, the chough disappeared. In Cornwall, where it appears on the county’s coat of arms and where legend has it that King Arthur’s soul returned in the form of a chough, it had been extinct since 1973. In 2001 three birds that arrived on their own from Ireland or France settled on the cliffs, and thanks to the return of grazing there are now dozens of pairs.
