Yellow-billed Magpie

Nice to see. How hard are these birds to see in the wild in California ? Pica pica has become quite a common sight in suburban areas in the UK.

IanRRobinson said:

Nice to see. How hard are these birds to see in the wild in California ? Pica pica has become quite a common sight in suburban areas in the UK.

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These guys are very common within their range and it is extremely easy to see them in places like Sacramento in California's Central Valley. They build nests out of big balls of sticks that they place on power poles and you can see them in most suburban neighborhoods. Because of their relatively narrow range there was great concern that they might be wiped out by West Nile virus, and their numbers did drop down, but hopefully that has passed.

Here's a comprehensive webpage with many resources for the species: Yellow-billed Magpies

Here is the 2011 yellow-billed magpie population survey with range map: http://ca.audubon.org/docs/Report_Magpie_survey_082311.pdf

Very difficult to photograph in this enclosure, and rarely seen in captivity. I believe only kept in Los Angeles and Sacramento's zoos.

Correction. I just checked ISIS:

0.0.1 Coyote Point Museum (San Mateo, CA)
3.1.0 Los Angeles Zoo
1.1.0 Sacramento Zoo
0.0.1 Chahinkapa Zoo (Wahpeton, ND)

Saw one or two of these birds kicking around the centre of Sacramento when I was there. Kicking myself to this day I wasn't quick enough with my camera!