The choughs have black plumage and brightly coloured legs, feet and bills and are resident in the mountains and rocky sea-cliffs of southern Eurasia and North Africa.

They feed, usually in flocks, on short grazed grassland, taking mainly invertebrate prey, supplemented by vegetable material or food from human habitation, especially in winter.

Changes in agricultural practices, which have led to local population declines and range fragmentation, are the main threats to this genus, although neither species is threatened globally.

[12] The greater subspecies diversity in the red-billed species arises from an early divergence of the Asian and geographically isolated Ethiopian races from the western forms.

[16] The genus Pyrrhocorax species differ from Corvus in that they have brightly coloured bills and feet, smooth, not scaled tarsi, and very short, dense nasal feathers.

[16][2] Choughs breed in mountains, from Morocco and Spain eastwards through southern Europe and the Alps, across Central Asia and the Himalayas to western China.

[23] These birds have black plumage similar to that of many Corvus crows, but they are readily distinguished from members of that genus by their brightly coloured bills and legs.

The sexes are similar, but the juvenile of each species has a duller bill and legs than the adult and its plumage lacks the glossiness seen in older birds.

The two choughs are distinguishable from each other by their bill colour, and in flight the long broad wings and short tail of the red-billed give it a silhouette quite different from its slightly smaller yellow-billed relative.

[34][35] Plant matter is also eaten, and red-billed chough will take fallen grain where the opportunity arises; it has been reported as damaging barley crops by breaking off the ripening heads to extract the corn.

[12] Alpine choughs rely more on fruit and berries at times of year when animal prey is limited, and will readily supplement their winter diet with food provided by tourist activities in mountain regions, including ski resorts, refuse dumps and picnic areas.

This falcon, which eats only insects, provides a degree of protection against larger predators and the chough benefits in terms of a higher breeding success.

[40] The red-billed chough is occasionally parasitised by the great spotted cuckoo, a brood parasite for which the Eurasian magpie is the primary host.

[17] Other parasites recorded on choughs include a cestode Choanotaenia pirinica,[42] and various species of chewing lice in the genera Brueelia, Menacanthus and Philopterus.

[48] The causes of the decline include the fragmentation and loss of open grasslands to scrub or human activities such as the construction of ski resorts,[53] and a longer-term threat comes from global warming which would cause the species' preferred Alpine climate zone to shift to higher, more restricted areas, or locally to disappear entirely.

[55] Only in Spain is it still common, and it has recently expanded its range in that country by nesting in old buildings in areas close to its traditional mountain breeding sites.

[56] Although these are mainly mountain species with limited interactions with humans, the red-billed chough has a coastal population in the far west of its range, and has cultural connections particularly with Cornwall, where it appears on the Cornish Coat of Arms.

[59] The red-billed chough was formerly reputed to be a habitual thief of small objects from houses, including burning wood or lighted candles, which it would use to set fire to haystacks or thatched roofs.

[18][60] As a high altitude species with limited contact with humans until the development of mountain tourism activities, the Alpine chough has little cultural significance.