Alternative name: Alpine Chough
- Pyrrhocorax graculus
Identification
34-38cm. A medium-sized corvid.
- Black plumage, weakly glossed bluish-green
- Fairly long tail, broad wings with fingered primaries, pinched wing-base with shorter inner primaries
- Short, yellow bill, slightly decurved
- Red legs
Sexes similar, juveniles with dull sooty black plumage, horn-coloured bill and black or dark brown legs (becoming red in the first winter).
Similar species
Can be confused with Red-billed Chough when bill is not seen. Differs with longer tail, narrower wings and less strongly fingered primaries.
Distribution
Widespread and locally common in mountain areas of southern Europe, North-West Africa and South-West Asia.
In Europe breeds in the Cantabrians, Sierra de Gredos and Pyrenees, in the Alps, Corsica and southern Italy, and in the mountain ranges of southeast Europe to southern Greece and Crete. Recently recorded in southern Spain where thought to be recent immigrants from Morocco.
In North Africa breeds in the Rif and Atlas of central Morocco and in Asia in the mountains of eastern Turkey and the Caucasus, and also occurs in the Middle East although current status unclear. Range extends eastwards across Central Asia to the Himalayas.
Vagrants recorded in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Gibraltar, Cyprus, and Armenia.
The species is mostly resident with some altitudinal movement in winter.
Taxonomy
Red-billed Chough is a close relative but White-winged Chough is not closely related.
Subspecies
There are 2 subspecies[1]:
Nominate subspecies occurs over much of Western Palearctic range with slightly larger digitatus in the Middle East and east to the Himalayas.
Some sources recognize a third subspecies forsythi[2].
Habitat
Mountain pastures and meadows with neighbouring cliff faces and rocky outcrops, also around high-altitude human habitation such as ski resorts.
Behaviour
The diet includes insects in summer and berries in winter.
Breeding season in Europe from May to June. Two birds form a life-long pair. Solitary nester but may form loose colonies. The nest is a bulky structure of sticks, roots and similar material, placed in a cliff, rock crevice, a cave or a rock chimney. Lays 4 eggs.
Vocalisation
Has distinctive calls. A sweet rippling "preeep" is most heard.
References
- Clements, JF. 2010. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2010. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/Clements%206.5.xls/view
- Del Hoyo, J, A Elliott, and D Christie, eds. 2009. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 14: Bush-shrikes to Old World Sparrows. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. ISBN 978-8496553507
- Avibase
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Yellow-billed Chough. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 7 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Yellow-billed_Chough
External Links
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