Pica hudsonia. The Black-billed Magpie is medium-sized and boldly patterned. Black-billed Magpies are in the family Covidae, which also includes the ravens, crows and jays. They sit on fenceposts and road signs or flap across rangelands, their white wing patches flashing and their very long tails trailing behind them. These are often the words of amazement uttered by a first-time-from-back-east visitor to Montana when they first see a Black-billed Magpie. However, the opportunist and rather aggressive Black Billed Magpie is an icon of the American West and a welcome resident of Montana. By Ryan Rauscher . By: Marlene Affeld For many years I believed that the Black Billed Magpie was the Montana State bird. They are the birds that everyone loves to hate.
Adults largely black, with contrasting white scapulars, white belly, iridescent metallic blue-green wings and tail, and large white markings on primaries (rarely on secondaries), with form white patch on wing when wing is extended. Sexes similar in appearance, and plumages similar throughout year.

Reasons for this are unclear; however, literature suggests that oppressive heat and humidity may play a role. The opening day of deer season was a memorable one. This large, flashy relative of jays and crows is a social creature, gathering in numbers to feed at carrion. Black-billed Magpies add much to western landscapes, both with their flashy appearance and with their big bushel-basket nests in trees. The Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia) ranges from south central Alaska down through the American southwest but strangely, does not extend east of the Mississippi. It seems a contradiction that one of the most intelligent and beautiful of Montana birds has such a bad reputation. Black-billed Magpie. Black-billed Magpie. In an earlier era, farmers and ranchers tried to exterminate this species, but to no avail, and it is common today in open country and even in towns in the mountain west. For the 18th year, my family and I returned to central Montana … Black-billed Magpies are familiar and entertaining birds of western North America. I was wrong, our state bird is the Meadow Lark.


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