From Opus

Pica nuttalli

Photo by Doug Greenberg.
Photo taken: California.

[edit] Identification

16-18" (41-46 cm). A slightly smaller version of Black-billed Magpie, but with yellow bill and bare yellow area of skin behind eye. Large white wing patches and long, wedge-shaped, iridescent greenish-black tail. Juvenile has blackish beak and lacks bare face patch. Ranges of two magpies do not overlap.

[edit] Distribution

Resident in California's Central Valley and adjacent foothills.

[edit] Taxonomy

This is a monotypic species.

[edit] Habitat

Oak savannas, oak woods, riverside growth, ranches, and suburbs.

[edit] Behaviour

A colony of Yellow-billed Magpies lives communally year round, feeding, socializing, and collectively mobbing predators. This magpie has found in vacant city lots and weedy storage yards a substitute for habitats it lost to intensive agriculture. It has become a city bird but keeps away from places where people gather.

Voice: A raucous qua-qua-qua and a querulous quack.

Nesting: 5-8 blotched, olive green eggs in a large, domed stick nest; breeds in colonies in tall trees usually so overgrown with mistletoe that it is often hard to detect the nests.

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