[Birdtalk] Magpie-Crown Jewel Among Birds

[Buck Russell]

This past weekend my wife and I visited family in the Sacramento area and took the opportunity to go birding.  One of the birds that I really wanted to see is the Yellow-billed Magpie.  These magpies used to be common in the Sacramento area, but due to West Nile virus are now difficult to locate.  I spoke with relatives, their neighbors, and others in the area seeking the birds, but everyone reported that they had not seen the birds in quite a while.  Many of them reminisced sadly about seeing large flocks of the birds covering their trees.  Many of the people I spoke with reported picking up dead magpies in their yards.  I spoke with one of the rangers at a nature refuge visitor center, who referred to the magpies as “the crown jewel of our birds”, but was unable to tell me where I could find the birds.  After a lot of effort we located about six of the birds at a golf course driving range.  I was touched by the number of people who expressed remorse that the magpies were no longer around and their fond memories of this bird being a frequent visitor to their yards, seen in huge flocks.  I wonder if people had similar thoughts a couple of centuries ago about the Passenger Pigeon.  I hope that these magpies develop immunity to the West Nile virus and rebound.  And now for the Utah connection in this email, last week we had our first reported case of a human with West Nile virus in Cache Valley (at least it was the first case that I am aware of).  Hopefully our birds will not be decimated like the Yellow-billed Magpie.  
Thanks.
Buck
_________________________________________________________________
Find a local pizza place, movie theater, and more….then map the best route!
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&ss=yp.bars~yp.pizza~yp.movie%20theater&cp=42.358996~-71.056691&style=r&lvl=13&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=950607&encType=1&FORM=MGAC01
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/birdtalk/attachments/20070821/acf8dfcc/attachment.htm