Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli)

About the Yellow-billed Magpie

The yellow-billed magpie (Pica nuttallii), also known as the California magpie, is a bird that is endemic to California's Central Valley and the adjacent chaparral foothills and mountains. Apart from its having a yellow bill and a yellow streak around the eye and being slightly smaller, it is virtually identical to the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia) found in much of the rest of western North America. The scientific name commemorates the English naturalist Thomas Nuttall. Audubon first named the species in 1837 using the spelling "nutallii". This mis-spelling of Nuttall's name was soon corrected by subsequent authors, but most recent literature has used the spelling "nuttalli", itself also an error as the original Latin ending -ii must be retained; the correct spelling thus nuttallii.