Magpies

How well do you know your magpies?  The three photographs below show three different birds; they were taken on three different continents.  Can you identify them?  We can’t say that they are three different species…but they might be!  Even those who identify birds by examining their DNA don’t seem to have reached a conclusion, so what chance for us?  Maybe you can at least suggest where each photograph was taken.

Here is another magpie.  This one’s easy - it’s obviously a Yellow-billed Magpie Pica nuttalli, which occurs only in California and which it seems everyone agrees is a distinct species.  Yellow-billed Magpies have declined in recent years with 50% of the population reportedly killed by West Nile virus between 2004 and 2006.

Not all magpies are black and white birds with long tails!  Below we have Red-billed Blue Magpie Urocissa erythrorhyncha from Asia, photographed in China and an Iberian Magpie Cyanopica cooki or perhaps an Azure-winged Magpie Cyanopica cyanus, photographed in Portugal.  Whether you choose to call the latter an Iberian or an Azure-winged will depend on which taxonomy you’re inclined towards.  We have blogged here on this subject in the past.

And not all black and white birds with a long tail are magpies!  Below is a Magpie Shrike Urolestes melanoleucus, a fairly common bird in savanna-woodland in eastern and southern Africa.  The photograph was taken in Tanzania.  Presumably the English name was given to the bird by a 19th Century European explorer who saw some similarity to the plumage and shape of Pica pica. 

China - 1

When Ray Tipper told me that he and two Avian Adventures clients were planning to spend the first two weeks of May in China it didn’t take long to persuade me to join them!  Their main aim was to be bird photography but for Ray it was also to be a scouting trip with the intention of possibly arranging a tour for 2014.

Red-billed Blue Magpie

The itinerary included six nights at Beidaihe, four nights on Happy Island and excursions to Old Peak to look for Koklass Pheasant and to Qinglong River in the hope of seeing Ibisbill.  Beidaihe and Happy Island have long been known as migration hotspots with early to mid May the best time to be there.  Clearly there was the possibility of seeing plenty of birds! 

 Brown Shrike

For me it was also an opportunity to travel to Asia for the first time, to see the Great Wall of China and maybe to see some of those species that I have previously only read about, the ones that have names beginning with the word Siberian!  Just as importantly, there was also the chance of seeing more than a dozen wader species that I hadn’t seen before.

Grey Nightjar

I’ve been back for four days and am now starting to make progress with processing the many photographs taken, a few of which will appear here on the blog over the next couple of weeks or so together with some details of the trip and the birds seen.