Black-Billed Magpie

The Black-Billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia), also known as the American magpie, is a bird in the Corvidae family found in the western half of North America. It is predominantly white and black, with iridescent blue or blue-green flashes in the black portions of the wings and tail. It is one of only four songbirds in North America whose tail is half or more of its whole length (the others being the yellow-billed magpie, the scissor-tailed flycatcher, and the fork-tailed flycatcher).

This species favors settings that are mainly open and contain groups of trees. As a result, it can be found in rural and suburban regions where it frequently interacts with people. Where it is being persecuted, it gets extremely apprehensive, but otherwise, it tolerates people rather well. It used to land on the backs of bison herds, but now it flies above livestock in search of insects and ticks. Black-billed magpies frequently accompany large predators like wolves as they scavenge from their kills. The species forages for food such as beetles, grasshoppers, worms, and small rodents by walking or hopping on the ground.