Red-billed Chough

The Red-billed Chough is a striking corvid with glossy black plumage that shimmers with a blue-green sheen in sunlight. Its most distinctive features are its curved, bright red bill and matching red legs, which contrast sharply with its dark feathers.

Both males and females share the same appearance, with no significant differences between the sexes. Juveniles resemble adults but have duller black plumage and orange-red bills and legs that darken to the adult's vibrant red with age.

Most members of the crow family sound relatively similar albeit that the Chough’s call most resembles that of a jackdaw but with a clearer and louder, chee-ow call.

Choughs are found throughout southern Europe and beyond. Generally, within the UK choughs can only be found in remote locations in the far west of Wales, western Scotland and Cornwall, where they have only relatively recently been reintroduced and are known locally as Cornish Choughs. Choughs favour sea caves, ruined buildings or holes and fissures in cliff faces in which to nest and thus tend to inhabit mountain areas or high coastal cliffs.

Choughs are often seen either in pairs or small flocks soaring and diving around cliff edges and can appear particularly graceful and agile. The fingers of their primary wing feathers are easy to spot from the ground as they cavort overhead in an endless exhibition of aerobatic manoeuvring.

Choughs enjoy feeding from old coastal pastures where they dig up earthworms, beetles, ants and other readily available insects and invertebrates using their purpose designed bill to probe into the soil. They will also consider small molluscs and lichen.

Nests can be bulky and are made of sticks, roots, heather and other plants and are lined with hair and wool. They are normally constructed inside mountain rock cracks and fissures, cliff face caves and old disused buildings. One brood of between 3 – 5 eggs coloured white with brown or grey blotches is produced between May to July.

Red-billed Choughs are highly social birds, often seen in pairs or small flocks. They perform acrobatic aerial displays, rolling and tumbling in the air while calling loudly.

On the ground, they use their curved bills to probe soil and crevices for insects, demonstrating remarkable dexterity in their foraging techniques.

The chough has a lifespan of five to ten years although twenty years plus has been recorded for captive birds.

While globally listed as Least Concern, Red-billed Choughs face localised threats from habitat loss and changes in agricultural practices. 

Conservation efforts in the UK, particularly in Cornwall and Wales, focus on maintaining suitable grazing regimes to preserve their foraging habitats.

Adult males and females are similar in overall appearance although the female is slightly smaller than the male. They have an all-over glossy black plumage with a blue-green sheen and most noticeably, striking red legs and a long red tapered slightly curved bill. The eyes are black and they have large square wings and a square tail. Particularly apparent in flight are their ‘fingered’ primary wing feathers. Choughs are slightly larger in stature than jackdaws. Juveniles are duller than adults with a pale orange-red bill and red legs. On the wing, they are masters making long upward swoops and steep rapid descents.