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

Description

Magpies are unmistakeable 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. 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. 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. Cover Contents 1 Introduction: magpies 2 Nest spacing and territorial behaviour 3 Social behaviour: breeding birds 4 Social behaviour: non-breeding birds 5 Feeding and food hoarding 6 Magpie populations 7 The breeding cycle: nests, eggs and incubation 8 The breeding cycle: chicks and their care 9 The breeding cycle: breeding success 10 Factors affecting success: bird and territory quality 11 Magpies and man 12 Comparisons and conclusions Appendix 1: Geographical variation in magpies Appendix 2: Morphological characteristics of male and female Black-billed Magpies Appendix 3: Body weight of male and female magpies in various locations Appendix 4: Differences in body weight and size between adult and firstyear Black-billed Magpies Appendix 5: Mean weight of 14-day-old magpie chicks in the Sheffield study Appendix 6: Differences in numbers of Black-billed Magpie chicks hatched and fledged in the Sheffield study Appendix 7: Breeding success of Black-billed Magpies in the Sheffield study Appendix 8: Breeding success for first and repeat breeding attempts within a season, for magpies in the Sheffield study Appendix 9: List of Latin names References Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W