Alpine Chough

The Alpine Chough Pyrrhocorax graculus is a member of the crow family. They have happily adapted to the tourist presence in the high alpine areas and I photographed these youngsters hanging out on the roof of the café at Nufenen Pass. Their natural food is invertebrates or berries which they forage in the alpine grasslands, but they aren't proud. Scraps from restaurant tables and rubbish bins are also enticing and in ski resorts the birds will stay at high altitudes all year round now whereas in the past they would have descended to a lower altitude during winter. They nest in crevices in the rocky cliffs.

Australian White-winged Choughs are members of the same family and look similar, but are not all that closely related.