Red-billed Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax)

The Red-billed Chough is very different from your usual crow. It is a highly specialised feeder, concentrating on probing the soil for beetle larvae, ants and other invertebrates, and lacking the strongly omnivorous and predatory habits of the rest of the family. It is also the most aerially able, demonstrating a complete mastery of flight that includes a wide array of aerobatics, often performed in flocks. A typical routine is to stall in the air and plummet towards the ground, wings closed, only to pull out of the dive just in time and then regain height to repeat the process. But this is only one manoeuvre among many. Choughs ride air currents in flocks, soaring, tumbling and twisting, and uttering their distinctive call “chee-ow!” Many other crows are good in flight; Red-billed Choughs are exceptional.

Red-billed Choughs are found in two main habitats; rocky coasts and mountains. They have a highly fragmented range in Europe, with many rather small outlying populations, for example in Sardinia and Crete. Their need for a rich fauna in the soil, combined with access to sea caves, deep rocky crevices or crumbling ruined buildings for safe nest sites has obviously limited them, but agricultural intensification, along with the persecution that comes with being a crow, has made them scarcer still.

Choughs pair for life but, even when breeding, waste few chances to join flocks for communal feeding and aerobatics. The core of a flock tends to be made up from non-breeding youngsters (Choughs breed at three years old) and may number 100 birds. But membership is highly informal, with birds coming and going as they please.