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Articles

Vol. 56 No. 1 (2025)

FIRST RECORD OF APPARENT HYBRIDIZATION BETWEEN THE YELLOW-BILLED AND BLACK-BILLED MAGPIES: HYBRIDIZATION

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21199/WB56.1.6
Submitted
September 9, 2025
Published
January 1, 2025

Abstract

 The Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli) and Black-billed Magpie (P. hudsonia) are closely related, but their ranges are allopatric. Both species are nonmigratory and highly sedentary, with few extralimital records. In April 2023, a Black-billed Magpie was discovered in Redding, Shasta County, California, in an area occupied by Yellow-billed Magpies. The Black-billed Magpie occurred regularly with a Yellow-billed Magpie at a bird-feeder, and subsequently two juvenile magpies with light pink and gray bills were seen together there. Because of the rarity of this bill coloration and the coincidence with a mixed-species pair, we conclude that the juveniles were the pair’s hybrid offspring. A literature review and records search
indicate that each species occurs in the other’s range exceedingly rarely, and this appears to be the first record of presumed hybridization between the species.

References