Black-billed Magpies East of the Sierra Crest

The light was fading, the temperature dropping, and the visitor center restrooms were closed at the very worst time restrooms could be closed.  We had been in the car for quite some time, and I had been counting on these restrooms.

My traveling companions were in no hurry to leave the breathtaking Mono Lake overlook and Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area Visitor Center (the official, lengthy title), despite its unfortunate and very definite status as "closed."  I, on the other hand, had been there before.  Restlessly I told myself I'd seen all the sights, read all the signs, etc. etc., and was impatient as only a woman in dire need of a restroom can be.  My husband kindly scoured the map for an alternative stopping place, and eventually our group piled back into the car.  Shifting into drive, I hurriedly left the deserted parking area, bound for relief elsewhere.

It was at that moment, leaving the visitor center parking lot on an otherwise empty road through Great Basin sagebrush scrub, that I saw the bird, perched on a low shrub.  I stopped in the middle of the quiet road after a brief glance in the rear view mirror - birders understand this maneuver - just long enough to get a good look.  All thoughts of cold, hunger, impending darkness and the dire need of a restroom were forgotten for the moment, absorbed as I was in this fascinating winged wonder.  (Again, birders will understand.)

Immediately I recognized the bird as a Black-billed Magpie: a lifer!


Where I live in the Great Central Valley, California's endemic and striking Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli) is a common sight.  Its iridescent beauty calls to mind distant tropics, its intelligence bespeaks its relation to other Corvids, the crows, ravens and jays.  But never before had I seen the closely related and common Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia) of the mountainous western United States.  (Of course, they showed up a few more times during our visit to the Eastern Sierra, eventually allowing for a couple of semi-decent photos.)


Black-billed Magpies are widespread across rangeland, sagebrush, farms and other open country of the West and their populations remain stable, despite decades of persecution by farmers and ranchers who deemed them pests.  Today, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act affords them full protection.


Bold and gregarious, Black-billed Magpies tend to gravitate toward human habitation rather than avoid it, drawn, as other Corvids are, by our garbage as well as accessible livestock feed.  They are opportunistic feeders, but I would argue they are certainly not pests!  Magpies provide valuable services through their varied diets, often targeting other small creatures farmers and ranchers battle against, such as insects like grasshoppers, caterpillars and beetles; carrion and associated maggots; ticks plucked from the backs of cattle and other ungulates; even small mammals, like squirrels and voles, which these tenacious birds kill themselves.


So, we begin to see the complex interactions between species at work, and the value magpies are to the ecosystem.

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