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Bird Species: M
Black-billed Magpie
Where They Live: To many bird enthusiasts, black-billed magpies represent the American West. They are common residents of the open country from northern Arizona east to the Oklahoma panhandle and north all the way to Alaska. These large members of the crow family avoid dense woodlands as well as grasslands completely devoid of trees, but are common along wooded riparian zones, farmland and even small towns. Magpies nest singly or in small, loose colonies 10 to 30 feet above the ground in small trees and shrubs. The nest, built by both the male and female, is a large spherical mass of sticks about three feet across with side entrance holes. The cup usually consists of mud lined with fine vegetation and/or hair. After laying six or seven eggs, the female incubates the clutch for 16 to 21 days. Both parents feed the nestlings, and they fledge when 25 to 29 days old. Magpies raise a single brood each year. The closely related yellow-billed magpie occupies similar habitats in central California.
What They Eat: Like most corvids, magpies are opportunistic and omnivorous -- they eat insects, small rodents and birds, bird eggs, small snakes, carrion, berries, nuts and seeds. At backyard feeders they favor nuts and sunflower seeds. Magpies are bold and can be trained to feed from the hand, a behavior observed early on by Lewis and Clark in 1804. Magpies forage primarily by walking on the ground and searching for food by using their bill to flip over debris. They sometimes follow predators to clean up after a kill, though they may eat more maggots than carrion. And more important than might be imagined are large quantities of ticks gleaned from the bodies of moose, elk and deer, especially in the early spring.
Appearance: Black-billed magpies are large, long-tailed, black-and-white birds. In flight, large white wing patches are obvious, and when closely observed the black wings and tail appear iridescent bluish-green.
Voice: Magpies exhibit an impressive array of harsh squawks and chatters to convey alarm, distress or location. None are musical. Young birds sometimes scream for food.
Do you know of any way to discourage magpies?
Magpies can be tough customers. Like crows and ravens they have a taste for songbirds and their nestlings. But they aren't all bad. Most of their diet is insects and they eat millions of grasshoppers every season. They're also great mouse catchers. The use of pest-proof feeders may help discourage them from visiting your yard. If they can't find food, they will move on.
Enter the Land of the Mockingbird Where Takeover is the Norm
"A week ago a mockingbird took over complete control of our backyard. We have about 12 feeding stations, and the only times they are used is when our chickadees sneak in, grab a black oil sunflower seed and then disappear into the woods. In desperation my spouse now runs out the back door, yelling like a banshee and clapping like a teenager at a rock concert.
This works but now the chickadees won't even brave the area. Please give me some hope that my wife will recover from this state and that the mockingbird will find romance down the block and leave my little chickadees alone."
This report probably will cause you to smile in empathy because the writer is not alone in trying to meet the mockingbird challenge.
It's all about territory. Mockers are big and bossy and don't like any intrusion into "their" property. It's not that they want the feeders to themselves at all. It's that the feeders are in the midst of their territory, and they need to control the nearby natural food sources.
Although they will come to feeding stations for suet, raisins and fresh fruit, mockingbirds rarely visit seed feeders.
So you can't just switch the food in your feeders to discourage such a territorial bird. A better tactic is to put another feeder out of sight of the others or move the present bird feeders to a different part of the yard, away from berry and other fruit trees and shrubs "owned" by the mockingbird. If you can separate the seed feeders from the mockingbird's feeding territory, it will help solve the problem of the mocker attacking the other birds.
The most prominent aspect of a mockingbird's behavior is its aggressive defense of home and food. Not only are its territories small, sharply defined and determinedly defended, but they are formed twice each year -- once in spring for breeding and again in the fall to protect a winter food source.
Mockingbirds are notorious for harassing domestic animals and even humans who unknowingly enter their territory. For example, they will dive bomb any who pass too close to a nest, causing people to abandon that part of the yard until the resident mockingbirds have raised their young.
The year-round range of the northern mockingbird (Minus polyglotto, Latin for many-tongued mimic) extends from New England on the east, south throughout Florida and across the lower United States westward to Oregon and south again into Mexico on the west.
Their hyperactive personalities make mockingbirds fun to watch. For example, a Mockingbird has been observed jumping four feet up and down on a telephone pole singing a beautiful song. Called "loop-flight," this is part of the male mockingbird's courtship and territory advertisement calling attention to its availability and signaling other males to go away. Another territorial display is the "dance" at territory boundaries. In dramatic fashion males confront one another face-to-face, hopping sideways in one direction and then the other to precisely mark their border. This can continue in the air, up and down the sides of buildings over bushes and through trees.
Mockingbirds are particularly conspicuous in the spring as they perch on mailboxes, telephone poles, trees and rooftops to demonstrate their remarkable vocalizations.
Following its natural instincts, the bird sings in courtship or the defense of nesting territory. If it's the former, once a pair sets up nest-keeping there won't be time to sing.
Have you ever wondered about late night bird songs when everybody else is trying to sleep? Mockingbirds are inveterate night singers, often going on until daybreak and then starting all over again. It probably is more than one mockingbird that is heard every night, continuing the performance started at daybreak, often repeating a phrase in rapid succession.
Reported to have repeated the songs of 32 birds in 10 minutes time, the mockingbird tops the charts as best imitator of other birds' sounds. And its scope is nearly limitless; during mating season, a mockingbird may master more than 400 songs, going through its repertoire for nearly an hour with little repetition. The mocker not only continually copies the calls and songs of other birds, but mimics the sounds of its environment -- even noises such as sirens and car alarms.