Talk:Chough

Bird of prey?
Or scavenger?77.83.168.173 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 23:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Does anyone know how to pronounce this? I think it's "Choo", but the two related articles list it as "chuff". Can someone verify, and then stick the pronunciation guide on the article? NickRinger (talk) 09:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Flight
"soaring in the updraughts at cliff faces": Is there anything to add about the wing-load that enables soaring flight and how soaring is affected by high altitude? Is there any significance of "diving and rolling" and "acrobatic displays", which both sound like could use up a lot of energy? Snowman (talk) 22:30, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Specialisation

 * What adaptations (other than down on Alpine Chough chicks) do they have to live at high altitude and also to survive in the mountains in the cold in the winter? Why do they have curved bills?  The crow family are known for their intelligence, and I wonder if bird intelligence is shown by choughs in their behaviour or vocal communications. Snowman (talk) 23:19, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry about delay in response, only just realise, bizarrely, that Chough wasn't on my watchlist. As far as I know, neither species has any particular adaptations for altitude. Most birds, even those much smaller than the choughs, can cope with freezing conditions because feathers are such good insulation. As long as they can feed, they can cope. Choughs will feed on wind-cleared areas or feed at lower levels. I assume that the curved bill, particularly of Red-billed, helps it in picking invertebrates from short pasture, but I can't source that. I've not seen anything on Chough intelligence, although they are clearly adaptable in utilising human settlements. On communication, although these are pretty noisy birds, I can't recall seeing anything on intelligence.  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  07:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * On the flight question above, altitude is unlikely to be a problem. Many migrants fly at high levels because its cooler and the loss of lift is more than compensated for by lower air resistance. That's why planes cruise at 30000 ft or more too. The aerobatics are part of the social behaviour, and I doubt that for birds with fairly broad wings that the extra energy demands are excessive.  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  07:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Do they use their curved beaks to dig into the ground perhaps to reach ants nests? Snowman (talk) 08:10, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that's likely, but nothing I've read says so  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  10:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I have just found a more-than-one-hundred-year old source that says the Red-billed Chough picked holes in a dry lawn to dig up bugs and it also says that they are curious; see F.O Morris. I am not sure if the wiki can use the image. Snowman (talk) 23:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Good find, I'll add that. The image is out of copyright, so we could use it. There are plenty of chough pics on commons, though, so it's a matter of whether we should replace an existing article image. What do you think?
 * I have uploaded the drawing/painting to commons, and it is there if you want to show it in any of the articles. Anyway, the drawing on the page by Johann Friedrich Naumann is a good illustration. Snowman (talk) 10:05, 21 July 2009 (UTC)


 * ==Clarification==

"Where the two species occur together, Alpine Chough tends to breed at a higher elevation than its relative, ..."; I am not sure what this means - it says they occur together, but then they are not together being at different altitudes. Does it mean that they occur together except when one species migrates up the mountain to breed. Snowman (talk) 08:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I meant in the same geographical area, I'll amend the text to clarify. having said that, the will often feed together in suitable habitat  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  10:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * On the size thing, although the difference in average length is slight, Alpine definitely looks smaller when both species are flying together, perhaps because the Red-billed's broader wings and tail give it a bulkier appearance. These two choughs are readily distinguishable at long range, even when the bill colour and length is not visible  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  11:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that they can be identified by their body proportions, rather than on size? Snowman (talk) 10:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * yes, but that's really what the article is saying too. If you are reasonably familiar with these species, you can identify either of them (even in the absence of the other) at a distance from the silhouette.  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  12:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Feeding
Per discussion on feeding listed above, didn't know if you'd found this yet... MeegsC | Talk 21:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Meegs, I couldn't get this to open in Firefox or IE, so I tried downloading, but couldn't open the file  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  06:16, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I get a blank screen instead of the pdf. This is probably because it is subscription only to see the full pdf, see log in page? A link to the abstract might help. Snowman (talk) 10:06, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have a subscription, so I'm not sure why I can read it! I put "chough feeding" into Google's scholar search (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=chough%20feeding&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws) and chose the first item on the list.  The whole article appears.  MeegsC | Talk 13:05, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I got it to appear by putting the search terms in Google Scholar as you describe, but not by putting in the long Google Scholar url - perhaps Google Scholar has got a subscription. Snowman (talk) 13:43, 21 July 2009 (UTC):::
 * I tried it, but I don't get a PDF as first item anyway. Can we have a title so I know what I'm looking for please?  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  16:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It doesn't show as a PDF on the Google listing. The article is "Feeding habitats of the chough on Bardsey Island (Gwynedd)".  It's in BirdStudy on Informaworld's website.  Like I said, it's the first article listed if you type chough feeding into Google scholar. If you'd like, I can cut and paste it, and email you a copy... MeegsC | Talk 22:36, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No, that's fine, thanks for the help - although I've got a PDF (:<b style="font-family:chiller; color:red;"> Jimfbleak - </b> talk to me?  05:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Which is blank for me! :)  Guess we know how they're keeping people from distributing this—so don't attach the PDF to the reference list! MeegsC | Talk 09:56, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

and me today! I'll kill the url for this, which isn't mandatory anyway <b style="font-family:chiller; color:red;"> Jimfbleak - </b> talk to me?  06:34, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Haemoglobin
There are several papers about oxygen transport in eggs of birds nesting at high altitude, and I think that it would be worth mentioning, especially for the record-breaking high-altitude nests of the Alpine Chough. I searched haemoglobin and chough, and found several papers and viewed the abstract. It seems that the heamoglobin of a chough chick (and related membranes) in the egg has high oxygen affinity and so the chick is able to respire even at such high altitude where the partial pressure of oxygen can be about a half of that at sea level. I wonder if any work has been done on haemoblobin affinity in adult choughs. Snowman (talk) 14:24, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Which papers did you find (can you give links or something)? Narayanese (talk) 20:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Web search: Snowman (talk) 21:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.jstor.org/pss/3882408
 * http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/2/461


 * I'd come across these. There is a bit of a problem in that although you can see where the article is going, the abstract/first page don't actually say that the Alpine Chough has the genetic haemoglobin adaptation. a picky reviewer would query this as a verifiable reference without the subscription text <b style="font-family:chiller; color:red;"> Jimfbleak - </b> talk to me?  06:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oxygen affinity of a Hb molecule can be varied physiologically, so an adaptation for altitude need not be a modification of Hb molecules. I agree that more suitable references should be used for sources in the article, and I would not add anything to the article based on the two reference abstracts I have listed above. It would be worth considering if there is enough literature on this topic to add something in an encyclopaedia. Snowman (talk) 07:40, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

European distribution
Article says that the Chough range is "eastwards through southern Europe" and the distribution map seems to show choughs on Cyprus. However, I could not find it in Breeding birds of Cyprus with check list of the birds of Cyprus (1998) by Louis Kourtellarides, Kailas printers, ISBN 9963420680. Other Corvids were mentioned in the list on pages 294-295, but neither chough species. Snowman (talk) 17:54, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomy
"Corcorax melanorhamphos, despite its similar shape and habits, is only distantly related to the true choughs". Following the categories on the wiki the White-winged Choughs and Choughs are all in the same group, see Category:Corvida. This seems to imply that they are not so distantly related. Snowman (talk) 22:14, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Corvida is paraphyletic, so their only relation is them being soongbirds I suppose. Maybe there shouldn't be a Corvida category on Wikipedia. Narayanese (talk) 09:54, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It is a large group. Interestingly, the Corcoracidae, Dicruridae and Monarchidae are three groups sometimes included in a larger more inclusive core corvidae, but I think the issue is that similarities in appearance are convergent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Please note that the Jackdaws (Corvus subgen. Coloeus) are not even near the Choughs within Corvidae. In fact the Southeast Asian Treepies (Dendrocitta, Crypsirina, Temnurus and Platysmurus) are the sister clade to Pyrrhocorax while Coloeus groups with the other Corvus species as well as Nucifraga and Garrulus. Goodwin's (very sceptic) presumption ist merely based on calls (which are strikingly similar within all of Corvidae) and the black plumage which is a result of convergence. For further information, see Per G. P. Ericson, Anna-Lee Jansen, Ulf S. Johansson, Jan Ekman: Inter-generic Relationships of the Crows, Jays, Magpies and Allied Groups (Aves: Corvidae) Based on Nucleotide Sequence Data. In: Journal of Avian Biology 36, 2005, pp. 222–234. Alternatively, the family account in the Handbook of the Birds of the World gives a good overview.--Toter Alter Mann (talk) 15:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Necessarily wrong statement
"Their closest relatives outside the genus appear to be the jackdaws of the genus Corvus." If choughs are a genus in their own right, they are by definition equaldistant to all species in the genus Corvus, not any closer related to jackdaws. Where does that statement come from? Does anybody know the correct relations? --KnightMove (talk) 05:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * What is the distance measure ? Shyamal (talk) 06:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You are probably right. According to a recent phylogenetic study the closest genus is Temnurus. Shyamal (talk) 06:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * To answer your question: The distance measure is the last common ancestor. If choughs are a genus in their own right, but more closely related to jackdaws than other members of the genus 'Corvus', the classification of 'Corvus' and 'Pyrrhocorax' as separate genera would be plain incorrect and changed immediately. --KnightMove (talk) 06:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you give an academic source for your claim that all members of a genus are equidistant from all members of another genus? It doesn't appear to make sense to me. Unless you are making the unlikely claim that all the members of Corvus evolved simultaneously, it is very likely that some of the species have diverged more from the common ancestor than others, without the difference being large enough to justify a further genus split. if you look at something like the diagram in this article, it's clear that some genera are more closely related to one another than to others in the same family. I can't see why a subgenus like Coleus can't, in principle, be closer to Pyrrhocorax than other Corvus subgenera. That doesn't necessarily mean that the jackdaws are therefore so different from other Corvus that they have to be split. I'm assuming, for the sake of argument that the jackdaws are the chough's closest relative, just to clarify the taxonomic thinking, although I realise they may not be <b style="font-family:chiller; color:red;"> Jimfbleak  - </b> talk to me?  07:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

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Distribution of choughs
Thé distribution map does not include Cornwall where the emblematic chough has reestablished for a number of years. It seems to be successful and is increasing its range from the west eastward. 2A00:23C8:64A6:A101:5C07:C225:43C7:9DDC (talk) 12:01, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Definitely loads of them in Cornwall. Breeding areas are protected. 217.155.25.156 (talk) 10:22, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

In Popular Culture
A red billed Night Chough is an important character in Gene Wolfe’s Long Sun series, named “Oreb” (an obvious Corvid reference) the bird is intelligent but speaks rarely and exclusively in two word responses, pronouncements or queries. Never more.

The bird’s identity, nature and purpose play a vital part in the narrative and the bird is a constant source of wisdom, guidance and humor. 75.172.73.121 (talk) 04:18, 28 June 2023 (UTC)