Alternative Name: Iberian Azure-winged Magpie, Cook’s Azure-winged Magpie, Spanish Azure-winged Magpie
- Cyanopica cooki
Identification
Length 34-36 cm, 13.4-14.2 inches, tail length 19-19.7 cm, 7.5-7.8 inches. Weight 65-76 g, 2.3-2.7 oz
Adults
- Head proportionally large
- Glossy black cap from crown to below eye including ear-coverts and nape
- Iridescent purple on crown and nape.
- Nape feathers slightly ruffled
- White throat and malar area
- Upperparts brownish-grey with pinkish hue
- Uppertail-coverts have blue wash
- Light buffish underparts
- Wings proportionally short and wide
- Upper wing azure blue with remiges with black inner web, azure blue with white tip outer web of primaries increasingly to outer primary
- Long, broad and strongly graduated azure blue tail with horn coloured shafts
- Underparts pinkish-grey darkest on flanks and side of breast fading to near white on center of belly
- Iris dark brown to black
- Beak black, fairly short and pointed
- Bristles short and thick
- Legs black, fairly short and weak
Juveniles
- Juvenileshave a brownish-black hood.
Similar species
- Differs from Azure-winged Magpie being smaller, with shorter beak, brighter blue wings and tail, lacks white tips on tail. Sexes similar. Juvenile is similar to adult, but hood brownish-black, crown feathers with pale edges, wing-coverts with sandy edges, greater coverts tipped white forming a narrow bar, tail tip not as sharp and with narrow buff edges, adultlike by end of first autumn.
Distribution
Endemic to the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain).
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species.
It was formerly considered conspecific with Azure-winged Magpie from Asia
Habitat
Open woodland with glades, orchards and olive groves. Prefers holm oak (Quercus rotundifolia) and cork oak (Quercus suber) with scattered stone pines (Pinus pinea). Eucalyptus stands are preferred for communal roost sites. Recorded locally up to 700 m in foothill gorges, occurs at lower elevations, with largest concentrations in wooded coastal dunes of cultivated stone pines in southwest Spain, where it successfully competes with the usually dominant Common Magpie.
Behaviour
Gregarious, forming noisy groups out of the breeding season.
Diet
The diet includes acorns and pine nuts, invertebrates and larvae, soft fruits and berries. When seeking invertebrates on the ground, they like to jump forward both feet together.
Breeding
They nest in loose, open colonies with a single nest in each tree, usually a Holm Oak Quercus ilex. Incubation takes around 15 days for the 6–8 eggs.
They can be used as host species by Great Spotted Cuckoo.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, B.L. Sullivan, C. L. Wood, and D. Roberson. 2013. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: Version 6.8., with updates to August 2013. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Avibase
- Wikipedia
- Collins Field Guide 5th Edition
- Collins Bird Guide ISBN 0 00 219728 6
External Links
