Birds

You needed the first photo to identify the Chough as Alpine, (the short yellow beak) Longer red beak is a Common Chough, but only usually found further south, Spain, Southern Italy. From the Corvidae family.

So here is a bird question, and I will give you the only two clues that I could see and hear, as I was going up the chairlift in Niederau.

1) I could hear the bird call first, and it was one I hadn't heard before. The bird was calling from the top of a high pine. The call was four distinct call sounds of " rare" or "grare", quite sharp sounds, about a second apart. The group of four calls was repeated maybe 2 to 3 times a minute.
2) I caught one glimpse of the underside, through the pines, about the size of a Jay, but with a white fan shaped tail. That was all I could see, and it turned out that my white fan shaped tail was not entirely accurate.

Hmm, may be a bit small, but how about a male ring ouzel? Is it possible the mistake you made was the white breast stripe, and not the tail?

Blimey, what have I started?
This is turning into Twitch City

Far Queue wrote:Hmm, may be a bit small, but how about a male ring ouzel? Is it possible the mistake you made was the white breast stripe, and not the tail?

Bigger than a Ring Ouzel, although, not a bad guess from the repeat call. The white is definitely on the tail. The impression was of a white fan shaped underside, although, it turns out to be diamond shaped.

Tony_H wrote:Blimey, what have I started?
This is turning into Twitch City

It is a good question, Tony. Since the picture of a Steinbock in Zermatt was posted last year, I was going to start an Alpine wildlife thread. Happy with birds for the moment.

This particular bird normally resides in Siberia in the summer, and is an Alpine winter visitor.

Hmm, any chance it is a bunting of some description?

Far Queue wrote:Hmm, any chance it is a bunting of some description?

No, buntings are slightly bigger than a finch.

is it a large bat