First survey in Cervinia

                                       

  The area we used to place nets was free from snow

As concern the catches, the project is moving ahead.

The first days of fieldwork in Cervinia showed a completely different snow situation compared to the one we saw in Mont Avic (as shown in the picture above): Enrico and I were in the surrounding areas to the town, around 2000 masl and there were no snow at all. But fortunately as soon as we arrived, we saw small flocks of Alpine Choughs flying around over the cliffs and then landing on pastures and feeding. Therefore we placed the clap-net and the nylon nooses in the area just at the bottom of the cliffs on a flat grassland with a few bushes and we used big pieces of bread to catch their attention and raisins as baits. They immediately seemed attracted by our baits and started flying over the zone. Unfortunately there were some other species interested in the food we left in the nets and in particular the zone was often frequented by Crows and marmots (we also caught a marmot 😳) and the former had a deterrent influence on the Choughs. 

Luckily the Crows didn't occupy the area for a long period and small groups (from 2 to 10 individuals) of Alpine Choughs started exploiting the sources of food we put as bait. 

While Crows showed to be scared by the nylon nooses that were moved by the wind, the Choughs seemed to be less suspicious with the nooses and they used to go on them feeding, but these traps didn't work maybe due to the wire that was too twisted.

Finally we were able to catch 5 Choughs with the clap-nets!

We took measurements, feather and faeces samples whenever possible, we put coloured rings (as shown in the first picture below) and we glued the radio-tags on the tail (as shown in the second picture below).

Next goal: to catch some Choughs in Mont Avic area!

The first Alpine Chough that we caught were ringed with a identificative sequence 

Individuals caught were fitted with a radio-tag glued to the tail

Enrico releasing a Chough