The Magpies: The Ecology and Behaviour of Black-Billed and Yellow-Billed Magpies

Tim Birkhead

• Publisher: T & AD Poyser
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9781408140246
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781408137772
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Zoology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Two species of magpie feature in this book, the Black-billed Magpie, familiar to most Europeans, which occurs throughout much of the northern hemisphere, and the Yellow-billed Magpie, which is confined to California.

Magpies are unmistakable in their appearance, voice and extrovert, arrogant manner. While their persecution at the hands of gamekeepers over the last hundred years has made them wary and difficult to approach, a number of recent field studies, both in Europe and North America, have successfully revealed the intricacies of the magpie way of life.

Tim Birkhead has studied both species, and has produced a fascinating account of their ecology and behaviour. Many of the results from his ten-year study of magpies in northern England are published here for the first time. Particularly revealing however is his comparison of the two species and of their different races. Magpies occur in a wide range of habitats, including English farmland, the deserts of North America, the mountains of Saudi Arabia and the windswept plateaus of Tibet. As this book explains, magpies are able to exploit this diversity of habitats largely through their remarkably flexible social behaviour.

The Magpies covers all aspects of their lives, including their marital relationships, food hoarding behaviour, longevity and survival, nesting behaviour, breeding success and their controversial relationship with man.

The text is supported by numerous photographs, diagrams and tables, and superb illustrations by David Quinn.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontispiece
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of photographs
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 01 - Magpies
• Chapter 02 - Nest spacing and territorial behaviour
• Chapter 03 - Social behaviour: breeding birds
• Chapter 04 - Social behaviour: non-breeding birds
• Chapter 05 - Feeding and food hoarding
• Chapter 06 - Magpie populations
• Chapter 07 - The breeding cycle: nests, eggs and incubation
• Chapter 08 - The breeding cycle: chicks and their care
• Chapter 09 - The breeding cycle: breeding success
• Chapter 10 - Factors affecting success: bird and territory quality
• Chapter 11 - Magpies and man
• Chapter 12 - Comparisons and conclusions
• Appendix 01 - Geographical variation in magpies
• Appendix 02 - Morphological characteristics of male and female Black-billed Magpies
• Appendix 03 - Body weight of male and female magpies in various locations
• Appendix 04 - Differences in body weight and size between adult and first-year Black-billed Magpies
• Appendix 05 - Mean weight of 14-day-old magpie chicks in the Sheffield study
• Appendix 06 - Differences in numbers of Black-billed Magpie chicks hatched and fledged in the Sheffield study
• Appendix 07 - Breeding success of Black-billed Magpies in the Sheffield study
• Appendix 08 - Breeding success for first and repeat breeding attempts within a season, for magpies in the Sheffield study
• Appendix 09 - List of Latin names
• References