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

Poyser Monographs

by Tim Birkhead

The last decade or so has seen a number of field studies, in Europe and the States, into the intricacies of the magpie way of life. The author has studied both species of magpie in Europe and the United States, and provides, in this text, an account of their ecology and behaviour. He covers all aspects of their lives - from marital relationships, food hoarding behaviour, longevity and survival, to nesting behaviour, breeding success, and their controversial relationship with man.
"Here is as fine a guide to understanding the behaviour of a wild bird as I can recall reading and from it the general birdwatcher will gain real insight into what local magpies are up to, especially in the breeding season...here is meticulous reviewing, heavily bolstered with the fruits of Birkhead's own scientific endeavours...you must read this book."
--Jim Reid, Scottish Bird News

Illustrated by David Quinn.

Genres: Birds

272 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1991

About the author

Tim Birkhead is an award-winning author and one of the world’s leading bird biologists. He is the coauthor of Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin (Princeton) and the author of The Wonderful Mr. Willughby: The First True Ornithologist, The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg, and Bird Sense: What It’s Like to Be a Bird, among other books. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Sheffield.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

You don't have to watch European magpies for very long to realize that they and crows are arch enemies. Almost every study of magpies has commented on the aggressive interactions that occur between these two species.

At the beginning of the year, I started putting out some nuts on my windowsill to attract any hungry birds. Living in the middle of the city, not much came around. But eventually a few magpies became frequent visitors and picked them up regularly. I began to see them more often in the trees in front of my house and after a while, they began to build one of their huge, domed nests right across the street in plain view of my living room window. It was pretty dang awesome to see the whole thing live. Especially knowing that I, as a reliable food source throughout the end of winter and then spring, probably was at least part of the reason why they chose that particular tree as their home.
So, I decided to actually read up on these birds I always liked but never knew much about.

Birkhead's book The Magpies might be the only book of its kind, truly and thoroughly focusing only on magpies.
It's a bit dry at parts since it's first and foremost an academic compilation of studies and findings, filled with the relating stats and graphs. But if that's what you're looking for, a very comprehensive collection of knowledge about these specific birds, then you really can't complain. It covers a lot of ground and draws from a ton of different sources as well as the author's own results of watching these birds for years with an obvious passion.
Every now and then there is a nice anecdote for some color as well. On that note, the chapter about the relationship between magpies and humans towards the end of the book might have been my favorite chapter as it relied less on raw data and more about history.

A great book if you want to learn about these birds. Possibly more suited as reference than to read front-to-back though.

[David Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains probably all the information worldwide about magpies that was available to the author when the book was published in 1991. It is comprehensive and exhaustive. Birkhead is a good writer and it's possible to enjoy the book just by reading the text. However, half the book consists of graphs and tables that supplement the text. In essence, the book is a long scientific paper about every aspect of magpie ecology, but it can be read, enjoyed and appreciated by an interested layperson as well. Much of the book presents information and data from a long and diverse study of magpies that Birkhead and his students conducted in the Rivelin valley west of Sheffield, England, but Birkhead always compares the findings his group collected with those from other locations around the Northern Hemisphere inhabited by magpies. Among the real pleasures of the book are the superb illustrations of magpies by David Quinn. I've given the book five stars because I'm fascinated by the magpies in my northern Colorado neighborhood, I'm a biologist by training, and because of the quality of the research and the writing; readers less captivated by the birds may find the information a bit too detailed and repetitive.