Alpine Chough
The Alpine Cough or Pyrrhocorax
graculus
can be found on the tips of the mountain usually a approaching the
3.000 meters elevation. At higher latitudes it can be found at much
lower elevation. In can be easily identified by its typical song and by
its colour and shape. It is part of the crow family and, due to the
black colour and the yellow beak it looks a gigantic Blackbird.
It has a unique features. It likes to attack eagles during flight. Eagles are excellent gliders but they cannot compete with the Alpine Cough agility.
They usually nest on the ground (on the other hand there are no trees at that elevation...). In the case shown below I found a chicken in an old barrack.
It has a unique features. It likes to attack eagles during flight. Eagles are excellent gliders but they cannot compete with the Alpine Cough agility.
They usually nest on the ground (on the other hand there are no trees at that elevation...). In the case shown below I found a chicken in an old barrack.
Alpine Cough flying.
Gran Queiron 2000
Alpine Coughs on the roof of an old barrack.
Col Frappier 1997
Chicken in an abandoned barrack.
Col Frappier 2000
The Alpine Cough's world.
Landscape seen Col Frappier nel 2007.
Note: the perspective is distorted due to the effect of the panorama picture.
Watercolour painting of an Alpine Cough seen form Jean Pierre Goante at the end of 18th century.
By courtesy of the Science Academy of Turin.
