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Showing posts from November, 2019

Chuffed by choughs

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Red-billed Chough beside grazing sheep (Martin Kelsey) A windswept wild call echoes across an acoustic arena of cliffs and ravines. A keen, embracing sound kyyaaah...kyyaah , it rolls and pitches in the same way as its author flies. Red-billed Choughs mirror the waves below western rocky coastlines, with their swell and tumbles and equally in their exploration of the funnels and uplifts of crags and deep valleys in the great mountain chains across Europe, North Africa and Asia and the highlands of Ethiopia. Villuercas Mountains (Martin Kelsey) In Extremadura, the bird finds its home in the Gredos Mountains and Sierras of Badajoz province, as well as the sublime Villuercas-Ibores-Jara range in the east. The latter is designated by UNESCO as one of its global networks of Geoparks, for the significance of its landform and geology. The Villuercas (as the entire range is sometimes known in shorthand) breaks above the tablelands south of the Gredos in a series of gigantic ripples