English

An alpine chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus)

Alternative forms

• Alpine Chough, Alpine chough

Noun

alpine chough ‎(plural alpine choughs)

1. A crow, Pyrrhocorax graculus, that breeds locally in the highest mountains of southern Europe, the Alps, across central Asia and India.
   • 1989, Robert Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen, page 138,

     In a sense these sections form refrains to the two couplets, in which two types of material are used: birdsong, consisting of the calls and cries of the alpine chough and the raven, and passages representing the flight of the alpine chough and the flight of the golden eagle.

   • 2000, Lawrence W. Swan, Tales of the Himalaya: Adventures of a Naturalist, page 97,

     The alpine chough was seen by Edmund Hillary on his way to the summit of Mount Everest at 28,000 feet, and I believe it is likely that the little cache of biscuits and candy placed on the summit by Tensing Norkay in May, 1953, was visited by alpine choughs on their patrols in search of human debris.

   • 2002, Chough, entry in Maurice Burton, International Wildlife Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Chickaree - crabs, 3rd Edition, page 451,

     Red-billed and alpine choughs live in mountainous regions, but while the latter is strictly a montane species, the former also occurs at lower altitudes. In most countries where both species are found the alpine chough is more numerous.

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