Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax
Silhouette: L. Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The red-billed chough, Cornish chough or simply chough ( CHUF; Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) is a bird in the crow family, one of only two species in the genus Pyrrhocorax. Its eight subspecies breed on mountains and coastal cliffs from the western coasts of Ireland and Britain east through southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East to Central Asia, India and China.
This bird has glossy black plumage, a long curved red bill, red legs, and a loud, ringing call. It has a buoyant acrobatic flight with widely spread primaries. The red-billed chough pairs for life and displays fidelity to its breeding site, which is usually a cave or crevice in a cliff face. It builds a wool-lined stick nest and lays three eggs. It feeds, often in flocks, on short grazed grassland, taking mainly invertebrate prey.
Although it is subject to predation and parasitism, the main threat to this species is changes in agricultural practices, which have led to population decline, some local extinction and range fragmentation in Europe; however, it is not threatened globally. The red-billed chough, which derived its common name 'chough' from the jackdaw, was formerly associated with fire-raising, and has links with Saint Thomas Becket and Cornwall. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hemis National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Picos de Europa National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 3 | Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 4 | Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park | 🇲🇳 Mongolia | |
| 5 | Vanoise National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 6 | Cévennes National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 7 | Aigüestortes National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 8 | Pyrénées National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 9 | Sierra Nevada National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 10 | Langtang National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 11 | Bale Mountains National Park | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | |
| 12 | Mercantour National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 13 | Ecrins National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 14 | Jiuzhaigou National Park | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 15 | Sierra de Guadarrama National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 16 | Snowdonia National Park | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 17 | Monfragüe National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ulaanbaatar | 🇲🇳 Mongolia | |
| 2 | Lanzhou | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 3 | Xining | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 4 | Tehran | 🇮🇷 Iran | |
| 5 | Madrid | 🇪🇸 Spain |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dresden Zoo | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 2 | Ostrava Zoo | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 3 | Beijing Wildlife Park | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 4 | Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden | 🇭🇰 Hong Kong SAR China | |
| 5 | Beijing Zoo | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 6 | Nuremberg Zoo | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 7 | British Wildlife Centre | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 8 | Kazan Zoo & Botanical Garden | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 9 | Zoologischer Garten Halle | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 10 | Santillana Zoo | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 11 | Alpenzoo Innsbruck | 🇦🇹 Austria | |
| 12 | Beijing Aquarium | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 13 | Tiergarten Am Tiergarten 14 in Nürnberg | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 14 | Tiergarten Am Tiergarten 6 in Nürnberg | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 15 | Bird Park | 🇷🇺 Russia |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Red-billed Chough sighting in Ulaanbaatar on a given day, based on 75 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 10th most-seen of the 63 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and December
In those months about 60% of wildlife watchers report a Red-billed Chough in Ulaanbaatar on a given day, against about 20% in February and July, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Red-billed Chough sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 5 cities where we can rate Red-billed Chough sightings, Ulaanbaatar has the highest daily chance: about 40%. Next come Lanzhou (China, about 10%) and Xining (China, about 10%).
Same family: Corvidae
The closest relatives of the Red-billed Chough that you can see in Ulaanbaatar (family Corvidae, Crows, Jays, and Magpies) are Eurasian Magpie (about 90%), Carrion Crow (about 80%) and Rook (about 40%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Red-billed Chough is recorded against all the birds logged in Ulaanbaatar (75 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
