15 September 2024: Day 9, Ronda and the Sierra Grazalema Mountains, WINGS Spain in Autumn Click on right here to see (typically) the place I’m right this moment.
It’s been 9 years since I first grew to become fascinated by the lengthy curved payments of the “crows with purple beaks.” Immediately I’m in red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) territory in Spain, residence of this Life Fowl.
Purple-billed choughs, pronounced “chuff“, are native corvids in Europe, Asia and North Africa however they’re primarily sedentary. They don’t migrate so I’ve to go to their homeland if I need to see them.
Their favourite habitats are coastal cliffs and mountain meadows strewn with boulders the place they poke their beaks into grass and soil to seek out bugs. They may even forage in grassy areas in mountain cities.
Purple-billed choughs roost on the cliffs of Ronda the place we’re staying two nights. They arrive earlier than sundown within the cliff valley spanned by the Puente Nuevo bridge, proper of middle within the photograph beneath.
Right here they’re in an analogous setting in Cadiz.
Similar to crows, choughs assemble in flocks and make a variety of noise. Nonetheless, choughs sound totally different from crows. Their title “chough” is meant to imitate the sound however nothing can fairly examine.
In North American individuals declare to have seen red-billed choughs within the wild however we don’t have them. Examine it on this classic article.
