Красноголовый гай (Krasnogolovy gay)

Bird in the crow family from Eurasia and North Africa

The red billed chough, Cornish chough or simply chough ('/tʃ//ʌ//f/ 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 and North Africa 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 extirpation, and range fragmentation in Europe; however, it is not threatened globally. The red billed chough, which derived its common name from the jackdaw, was formerly associated with fire raising, and has links with Saint Thomas Becket and Cornwall. The red billed chough has been depicted on postage stamps of a few countries, including the Isle of Man, with four different stamps, and the Gambia, where the bird does not occur.

The red billed chough was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Upupa pyrrhocorax. It was moved to its current genus, Pyrrhocorax, by Marmaduke Tunstall in his 1771 Ornithologia Britannica. The genus name is derived from Greek πυρρός (pyrrhos), "flame coloured", and κόραξ (korax), "raven". The only other member of the genus is the Alpine chough, Pyrrhocorax graculus. The closest relatives of the choughs are the typical crows, Corvus, especially the jackdaws in the subgenus Coloeus. "Chough" was originally an alternative onomatopoeic name for the jackdaw, Corvus monedula, based on its call. The similar red billed species, formerly particularly common in Cornwall, became known initially as "Cornish chough" and then just "chough", the name transferring from one species to the other. The Australian white winged chough, Corcorax melanorhamphos, despite its similar shape and habits, is only distantly related to the true choughs, and is an example of convergent evolution.

There are eight extant subspecies, although differences between them are slight. P. p. pyrrhocorax, the nominate subspecies and smallest form, is endemic to the British Isles, where it is restricted to Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the far west of Wales and Scotland,
P. p. erythropthalmus, described by Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1817 as Coracia erythrorhamphos, occurs in the red billed chough's continental European range, excluding Greece. It is larger and slightly greener than the nominate race. P. p. baileyi described by Austin Loomer Rand and Charles Vaurie under its current name in 1955, is a dull plumaged subspecies endemic to Ethiopia, where it occurs in two separate areas. The two populations could possibly represent different subspecies. breeds from Greece to Afghanistan. It is larger than the African subspecies, but it has a smaller bill and its plumage is very green tinted, with little gloss. is found from the Himalayas to western China, but intergrades with P. p. docilis in the west of its range. It is the largest subspecies, long tailed, and with blue or purple blue glossed feathers. breeds in Central Asia. It is smaller and less strongly blue than P. p. himalayanus, breeds in central and northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia. It is similar to P. p. centralis but with a weaker bill. Detailed analysis of call similarity suggests that the Asiatic and Ethiopian races diverged from the western subspecies early in evolutionary history, and that Italian red billed choughs are more closely allied to the North African subspecies than to those of the rest of Europe.

The adult of the "nominate" subspecies of the red billed chough, P. p. pyrrhocorax, is in length, has a wingspan, but the juvenile has an orange bill and pink legs until its first autumn, and less glossy plumage.

The red billed chough breeds in Ireland, western Great Britain, the Isle of Man, southern Europe and the Mediterranean basin, the Alps, and in mountainous country across Central Asia, India and China, with two separate populations in the Ethiopian Highlands. It is a non migratory resident throughout its range. It tends to breed at a lower elevation than the Alpine chough, A pair exhibits strong mate and site fidelity once a bond is established. Old buildings may be used, and in Tibet working monasteries provide sites, as occasionally do modern buildings in Mongolian towns, including Ulaanbaatar. The female incubates for 17–18 days before the altricial downy chicks are hatched, and is fed at the nest by the male. The female broods the newly hatched chicks for around ten days, and then both parents share feeding and nest sanitation duties. The chicks fledge 31–41 days after hatching. The temperature and rainfall in the months preceding breeding correlates with the number of young fledging each year and their survival rate. Chicks fledging under good conditions are more likely to survive to breeding age, and have longer breeding lives than those fledging under poor conditions. The preferred feeding habitat is short grass produced by grazing, for example by sheep and rabbits, the numbers of which are linked to the chough's breeding success. Suitable feeding areas can also arise where plant growth is hindered by exposure to coastal salt spray or poor soils. It will use its long curved bill to pick ants, dung beetles and emerging flies off the surface, or to dig for grubs and other invertebrates. The typical excavation depth of reflects the thin soils which it feeds on, and the depths at which many invertebrates occur, but it may dig to in appropriate conditions. Where the two chough species occur together, there is only limited competition for food. An Italian study showed that the vegetable part of the winter diet for the red billed chough was almost exclusively Gagea bulbs, whilst the Alpine chough took berries and hips. In June, red billed choughs fed on Lepidoptera larvae whereas Alpine choughs ate cranefly pupae. Later in the summer, the Alpine chough mainly consumed grasshoppers, whilst the red billed chough added cranefly pupae, fly larvae and beetles to its diet. Both choughs will hide food in cracks and fissures, concealing the cache with a few pebbles.

The red billed chough's predators include the peregrine falcon, golden eagle and Eurasian eagle owl, while the common raven will take nestlings. This species is occasionally parasitised by the great spotted cuckoo, a brood parasite for which the Eurasian magpie is the primary host. Red billed choughs can acquire blood parasites such as Plasmodium, but a study in Spain showed that the prevalence was less than one percent, and unlikely to affect the life history and conservation of this species. These low levels of parasitism contrast with a much higher prevalence in some other passerine groups; for example a study of thrushes in Russia showed that all the fieldfares, redwings and song thrushes sampled carried haematozoans, particularly Haemoproteus and Trypanosoma. Red billed choughs can also carry mites, but a study of the feather mite Gabucinia delibata, acquired by young birds a few months after fledging when they join communal roosts, suggested that this parasite actually improved the body condition of its host. It is possible that the feather mites enhance feather cleaning and deter pathogens, and may complement other feather care measures such as sunbathing, and anting—rubbing the plumage with ants (the formic acid from the insects deters parasites). The European breeding population is between 12,265 and 17,370 pairs, but only in Spain is the species still widespread. Since in the rest of the continent breeding areas are fragmented and isolated, the red billed chough has been categorised as "vulnerable" in Europe. In Spain the red billed chough has recently expanded its range by utilising old buildings, with 1,175 breeding pairs in a study area. These new breeding areas usually surround the original montane core areas. However, the populations with nest sites on buildings are threatened by human disturbance, persecution and the loss of old buildings. Fossils of both chough species were found in the mountains of the Canary Islands. The local extinction of the Alpine chough and the reduced range of red billed chough in the islands may have been due to climate change or human activity. A small group of wild red billed chough arrived naturally in Cornwall in 2001, and nested in the following year. This was the first English breeding record since 1947, and a slowly expanding population has bred every subsequent year. In 2013, juveniles were released onto the north coast of Jersey using soft release methods developed at Durrell. Over the next five years, small cohorts of captive bred choughs were released, monitored, and provided supplemental food.

Up to the eighteenth century, the red billed chough was associated with fire raising, and was described by William Camden as incendaria avis, "oftentime it secretly conveieth fire sticks, setting their houses afire".</blockquote>

Not all mentions of "chough" refer to this species. Because of the origins of its name, when Shakespeare writes of "the crows and choughs that wing the midway air" [King Lear, act 4, scene 6] or Henry VIII's Vermin Act 1532 is "ordeyned to dystroye Choughes, Crowes and Rookes", they are clearly referring to the jackdaw. and hence killing this bird was unlucky. Legend also holds that after the last Cornish chough departs from Cornwall, then the return of the chough, as happened in 2001, will mark the return of King Arthur. In English heraldry the bird is always blazoned as "a Cornish chough" and is usually shown "proper", with tinctures as in nature. Since the 14th century, St Thomas Becket (d.1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, has retrospectively acquired an attributed coat of arms consisting of three Cornish choughs on a white field, although as he died 30 to 45 years before the start of the age of heraldry, in reality he bore no arms. These attributed arms appear in many English churches dedicated to him. The symbolism behind the association is not known for certain. According to one legend, a chough strayed into Canterbury Cathedral during Becket's murder, while another suggests that the choughs are a canting reference to Becket's name, as they were once known as "beckits". However the latter theory does not stand up to scrutiny, as the use of the term "beckit" to mean a chough is not found before the 19th century.

This species has been depicted on the stamps of Bhutan, The Gambia, Turkmenistan and Yugoslavia. It is the animal symbol of the island of La Palma.