Magpie Antics

Corvids (the crows and jays)... They are the bomb. Smart, pretty, bold, cagey. Black-billed magpies have to take the prize for flashiest North American corvid. They're all over the place in Taos and Arroyo Seco. They love those foothills, sagey flats, cottonwood-lined rivercourses, cow pastures. They write haikus across the landscape with their white wings.On our last morning in our nice adobe house in Arroyo Seco, Bill got the idea to feed the neighborhood magpies. We broke out some whole-grain bread, Cheezits and almonds. He put the food out on a rock and I scurried to get my camera. The magpies were on it before I could focus. They're always watching for handouts, for people doing something food-related.

No dummies, the first magpies to arrive took the almonds. Given a choice, a corvid will always choose protein over carbs. Maybe that's why you don't see magpies riding around in electric scooters at Wal-Mart. They're all fit and trim. But inclined to be gluttons.

These birds were convinced that if they just tried hard enough, they could get three almonds in their bill at once.Two was nice, but three would be so much better. This one is contemplating Almond # 3, and trying to decide whether to drop #1 and #2 to rearrange and stuff #3 in.

They practically lay down on the rock, knowing that picking the nuts up sideways was their best hope. Look at the rainbow in this bird's tail.
Beaks filled, they'd adjourn to the neighboring lawn and cow pasture to cache the treasure. Corvids don't often stop to eat when they find abundant food. They carry it off in expandable gular (throat) pouches and hide it in a bunch of different places, hedging against a lean day. This bird stared at me incredulously when I went and dug up his cache. We were running low on almonds, and I figured I'd recycle them and get a few more shots. I could feel the outrage in his glare. Humans aren't supposed to notice when and where magpies cache their food. Ah, but I am no ordinary human, Grasshoppa.Whole -grain bread's OK in a pinch, but we prefer almonds. Or hamburger. Got any hamburger?

The light is always a challenge in New Mexico. It can be pretty harsh, and we found that diffuse cloud light (rare there) was usually better for bird and landscape shots. I was pleased with how the camera was able to capture the magpies' iridescence in bright low morning sun, though.We perceive them as black-and-white, but they're anything but. Try teal-blue and white. Cozying up to a captive-raised, imprinted talking magpie in Paul Tebbel's office at The Wildlife Center in Espanola, I was astounded to see that its nictitating membranes were white, with a neon orange center. What's with that? It flashed them rapidly as it spoke to me (charming!), so I guess the wild color has social signaling value. Ooh, he liked me, and talked a blue streak, kind of a whispery hurried, muttered mess of sweet nothings come'ere, com'ere hiyahowyadoin' prettyboy and that kind of thing. I was so charmed I offered him my finger, which he bit savagely. He's a magpie, after all. Kind of tough to make an education bird out of a character like that, but they're going to try. He'd been confiscated from his captors by wildlife officials. Apparently Native cultures in New Mexico kept magpies and ravens as pets for centuries. He made Charlie look like a pushover.

It's hard to get a picture of a bird's nictitating membrane, but sometimes it happens accidentally. This enlargement barely hints at the Dreamsicle orange center of the membrane, but trust me, it's as bright as the Cheezit in his bill.Fine birdies. I wish we had them in Ohio. I would feed them meat scraps and whatever else they asked for. It's nice to see a corvid that's not afraid of people. You wouldn't be sitting in a patio chair 30 feet from American crows, shooting their pictures and laughing out loud, that's for sure. I guess we can put black-billed magpies under the heading of: Just One More Thing to Love About New Mexico.