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;[[: Category:Calocitta|Calocitta]] formosa | ;[[: Category:Calocitta|Calocitta]] formosa | ||
| − | [[Image:White-throated_Magpie_Jay.jpg|thumb|550px|right|Photo by jonlowes<br /> | + | [[Image:White-throated_Magpie_Jay.jpg|thumb|550px|right|Photo by {{user|jonlowes|jonlowes}} <br />Guacimal, [[Costa Rica]], March 2007]] |
==Identification== | ==Identification== | ||
Revision as of 20:31, 30 April 2010
- Calocitta formosa
Identification
32cm, with its long tail accounting for about half that length. Blue/blue grey upperparts, wings and tail, white underparts and sides of its head, black band running across its breast and halfway up each side of the neck, stout bill, black legs and feet. Sexes alike.
Distribution
Central Mexico to Costa Rica. In Costa Rica common resident of N Pacific slope, S to near San Mateo and Orotina, occasionally to Carara.
Taxonomy
Three subspecies are recognized, formosa, azurea, and pompata. Black-throated Magpie-Jay have in the past been considered a fourth subspecies.
Habitat
Thorny scrub, savanna trees, groves near houses, deciduous and gallery forest.
Behaviour
Travels in noisy, straggling flocks of 5-10 through thorny scrub, savanna trees, groves near houses, deciduous and gallery forest. Eats many fruits, including cultivated varieties and maize; takes eggs and nestlings of other birds, sips nectar from large blossoms of balsa, also eats small frogs and lizards and other insects.
