1. What's in a name? 
2. What does it look like?
3. What does it sound like?
4. How does it behave?
5. Where does it live?
6. Cool facts

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Common name: Black-billed Magpie

Scientific name: Pica hudsonica

Spanish name: Urraca de Pico Negro

French names: Pie bavard, Pie d'Amérique

German name: Elster

"Family Tree" (Taxonomy)

Family: Corvidae

Order: Passeriformes

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

Description:

• Medium-sized, boldly patterned corvid. 
• Adults largely black, with contrasting white scapulars, white belly, iridescent metallic blue-green wings and tail, and large white markings on primaries which form white patch on wing when wing is extended.
•  Tail long, narrows to tip. 
• Black beak and dark legs.

Size: 16 - 19 inches. Small body but long tail makes bird appear fairly large.

Similar species: Yellow-billed Magpie nearly identical, except it has a yellow bill, yellow skin around the eye, and is slightly larger. It lives only in a small area in California.

WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE?

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Sounds provided by the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds.

HOW DOES IT BEHAVE?

What does it eat? Ground-dwelling invertebrates, grain, acorns, carrion, and small mammals. Preys on other birds and their nests.

Where does it eat? Forages primarily on ground. Holds food with feet and pecks it. Opportunistic and omnivorous feeder. Individuals watch each other, as well as predators with food, and gain information about potential food sources.

Who eats it? American Crows commonly take eggs from Black-billed Magpies. Other common nest predators are long-tailed weasel, mink, domestic or feral cat, raccoon, Northern Harrier, Red-tailed and Swainson's hawks, Common Raven, and especially Great Horned Owl.

Nesting: 1 - 9, but usually 6-7 eggs. Tan or olive-brown with variable amount of dark brown speckles. Nest a sturdy domed bowl, made primarily of sticks and mud. Lined with hair, grass, bark, or rootlets. Placed in tree, shrub, or on utility pole.

WHERE DOES IT LIVE? 

Range: Resident along southern Alaska coast, and from eastern British Columbia eastward to western Ontario and southward to northern Arizona. Outside of the Americas from British Isles, Scandinavia, northern Russia, and central Siberia south to Mediterranean region, northwestern Africa, Near East, Iran, Himalayas, and Asia, e.g. China, Formosa, Korea, and Japan.

Habitat: Found in thickets in riparian areas, meadows, grasslands, sagebrush, and frequently numerous near human habitats-e.g., livestock feedlots, barnyards, landfills, sewage lagoons, and grain elevators. Long tails and slow flight require individuals to keep near cover to avoid raptors, but they do not usually favor dense woods, except for roosts.

COOL FACTS

• Black-billed Magpie had a colorful association with early Americans, frequently following bison-hunting Native Americans and living on the refuse of their hunts. When Lewis and Clark first encountered magpies in 1804 in South Dakota, these birds were bold, entering tents to steal meat and taking food from the hand.
• The Black-billed Magpie makes a very large nest that can take up to 40 days to construct. It's a lot of work, but a study found that it only used about 1% of the daily energy expenditure of the pair. Laying eggs, on the other hand, takes 23% of the female's daily energy budget.
• Like most members of its family, the Black-billed Magpie is known as a predator on nests of other birds. Although it will take eggs and nestlings, these items actually make up only a tiny portion of the magpie's diet. In England, one study found that songbird density actually increased when Eurasian Magpie density increased.
• The Black-billed Magpie frequently lands on large mammals, such as deer and moose, to remove ticks from them. The magpie eats the ticks, and then hides some for later use, as members of the crow and jay family often do with excess food. Most of the ticks, however, are cached alive and unharmed, and may live to reproduce later.
• Black-billed Magpies have some interesting feeding behaviors! They feed by flipping over cow manure looking for insectsand will steal food from predators. They also hoard food when there is an excess.
• Scatter-hoarding of food by magpies is usually only for short term; items are recovered within 1-2 d. Often covers cache with stone or leaf, and apparently remembers many cache sites by sight or smell. In field test of olfactory abilities, magpies were able to recover significantly more hidden caches of raisins and suet if they had been scented in cod liver oil.
• As soon as young leave nest, they mob American Crows, as well as American Kestrels, but their parents do not. Young appear to learn from their parents what is dangerous, and then practice mobbing behavior on relatively safe predators, such as the above and Sharp-shinned Hawks
• Dominant young males seem to take inordinate risks around dangerous predators, such as pulling tails of Cooper's Hawk or Northern Goshawk, perhaps to gain social recognition, since no food was involved.
• Hand-reared magpies are renowned for hoarding shiny, bright objects, but this behavior has never been observed in wild magpies
• Magpies flock around dead magpies (called "gatherings"). The magpie that finds the dead bird may begin calling excitedly. Other magpies are attracted and perch in trees or other nearby structures, calling loudly. Up to 40 birds might gather within minutes after a dead magpie is spotted. Some magpies fly down 1 or 2 at a time and walk around the body calling loudly, often pecking at the wings or tail.
• On the ground, usually walks, often with apparent swaggering gait. When in a hurry or about to take off, hops, sometimes intermixing short flights with hops. This fly-hopping behavior appears to be used as visual signal to stimulate flock to follow; as the first magpie to leave a flock does this, then others frequently follow. Long tail allows quick changes in direction, almost instantaneously.
• Rarely fights. After failure to establish dominance relationships with vocal and visual signals, individuals sometimes jump into air in attempt to kick each other. May lock feet; then the more dominant bird stands over the more submissive one, which lies on its back. Amid much excited calling, dominant bird repeatedly and violently jabs with its bill at chest of submissive bird. Commotion attracts any nearby magpies, which stand around calling loudly. Often a bystander pulls tail of dominant bird, which causes it to turn around, often freeing the downed bird before it is harmed. 
• Treetop-Sitting is a behavior that denotes ownership of space. It might not look like a territorial display, but it is equivalent to song in other songbirds. An individual simply sits in top of tree for extended periods of time, with white flanks fluffed so that dark wings are hidden. Black ends and white middle make this bird highly visible; this behavior allows it to advertise its presence inexpensively and overlook its own and its neighbor's territories.
• Mean life expectancy 3.5 years for males 2.0 years for females. Oldest banded bird on record 15 years, 1 month old. Two captive birds lived 20 years.
• Bold behaviors-will enter tents to steal food.

Join the fun and count Black-billed Magpies to help scientists! It's simple!

- Go to Crows Count and learn how you can help scientists understand more about magpies and other crow relatives.

Sources used to construct this page

Stanley, T. R. 2002. How many kilojoules does a Black-billed Magpie nest cost? Journal of Field Ornithology 73: 292-297. 

Trost, C. H. 1999. Black-billed Magpie (Pica pica). In The Birds of North America, No. 389 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA