crow city | crow family | carrion & hooded crow | rook | jackdaw | magpie | jay | chough | raven
The red billed chough is set apart from the other British crows by its red bill and legs. The rest of the bird is black with a bluish gloss, tending more towards green on the wings and tail. Its eye is dark brown. At a distance it is most easily confused with jackdaws, rooks and carrion crows. It is larger than the jackdaw though, and its wings are proportionately noticeably longer, with more separated primary feathers. They are astonishingly accomplished and graceful fliers.
The chough’s distribution is thin and scattered. They can be found in some of the Scottish islands, the north, west and south coasts of Ireland, some areas of North Wales and Pembrokeshire, but is now sadly gone from England. In a new initiative they are now being reintroduced to Cornwall. They are currently living in giant open aviary halfway houses along the coast, and are being encouraged to repopulate the coast. There is more understanding now about the conditions they favour - closely cropped grass peppered with piles of dung - and there is every reason to hope that the repopulation will be successful. Their numbers have been diminishing for quite some time, and they are now strictly coastal birds.
Choughs are seen in pairs in all seasons and it seems that many choughs may pair for life. They have been recorded building their nests in quarries, mines, sea caves and cliffs . They will feed and play in flocks outside of the mating season if their numbers are sufficient to do so.
The chough’s slender beak causes their feeding habits to be slightly different from those of the other crows. They probe the ground and kick over clods and stones to reach the insects underneath. In the sand they will sometimes dig deep holes in their foraging. Ants are important to their diet and they will probe down into their nests for ants and larvae. They also store food, hiding it in rock crevices or burying it.
The most dangerous predator for the chough is of course man, who is much more of a threat to their way of life than the peregrine falcon, their main avian predator. Choughs have been taken from Ireland with the intention of recolonising Cornwall, but these attempts have yet to meet with success.