Overview
The White-winged Chough (Corcorax melanorhamphos) is a charismatic, intensely social songbird native to eastern Australia. One of only two living members of the unique mudnest-builder family Corcoracidae, choughs live in tight communal family groups that forage across woodland floors and cooperatively build monumental mud bowl nests.
Biology and Physical Characteristics
Superficially crow-like, the White-winged Chough has velvety sooty-black plumage, a slender decurved bill, and brilliant scarlet-red irises that turn fiery orange-red when agitated. Broad white wing flashes on the primary flight feathers are completely hidden when perched but burst into view during flight or social threat displays.
Behavior and Ecology
Choughs are obligate cooperative breeders living in cohesive family clans of 4 to 20 individuals. The entire group participates in constructing a heavy, thick-walled bowl nest crafted from hundreds of mouthfuls of damp mud and grass atop a horizontal eucalyptus limb. Groups forage communally, walking in lines while tossing leaf litter and deadwood aside with their bills to find beetle grubs and worms.
Conservation and Human Impact
Evaluated as Least Concern by the IUCN, Corcorax melanorhamphos remains abundant across southeastern Australian woodlands. Because clan survival depends on group cohesion, habitat fragmentation and road mortality can destabilize smaller clans below the threshold needed to successfully raise chicks.
Interesting Factoid
White-winged Chough clans sometimes engage in territorial skirmishes to ‘kidnap’ fledglings from neighboring groups, indoctrinating the young birds into their own clan to serve as nest helpers in subsequent breeding seasons!
Last updated: October 2026