Dave Gadd and Geoff Robberts with a completed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) box in the Old Farm courtyard, Skomer Island, 16 June 2012.

The red-billed chough is a bird in the crow family. It has glossy black plumage, a long curved red bill, red legs, and a loud, ringing call. It has a buoyant acrobatic flight with widely spread primaries. The red-billed chough pairs for life and displays fidelity to its breeding site, which is usually a cave or crevice in a cliff face. It builds a wool-lined stick nest and lays three eggs. It feeds, often in flocks, on short grazed grassland, taking mainly invertebrate prey.

According to Cornish legend King Arthur did not die after his last battle but rather his soul migrated into the body of a red-billed chough, the red colour of its bill and legs being derived from the blood of the last battle and hence killing this bird was unlucky. Legend also holds that after the last Cornish chough departs from Cornwall, then the return of the chough, as happened in 2001, will mark the return of King Arthur.
This is reflected in one of the bird's Welsh names, 'Brân Arthur', meaning 'Arthur's Crow'.