Striking a regal pose after a morning of catching grasshoppers: Close cousins of crows, ravens, jays and magpies and adaptable to both urban and wilderness environs, choughs are common around Ulaanbaatar.

The convention: On the crest of this rocky hill, there were dozens of choughs. A hundred. Maybe more. Many of them were gathered around a cluster of chough feathers near these rocks. A fox? A kite? An eagle or hawk? Some predator had diminished their numbers by one. The entire flock was concerned.

Choughs in dawn light, hanging together, winging their way across the mountains and steppe near Ulaanbaatar.