Simon Mustoe raised the possibility that this bird might be a Black-billed Magpie. No chance! With ships arriving at Port Hedland daily from Asia it would be that taxon rather than its relative from North America. The differences are slight the most obvious being a grey band across the lower back/rump but that area of the plumage is not visible in the adequate but rather ordinary photo. Parsimony states such criteria unnecessary. This is one of a few strange occurrences I’ve heard of recently. Currently there is a rather pallid looking ‘Barbary Dove’ on Lord Howe island thought possibly a natural arrival from the feral NZ population. Another is an old observation from a person (nascent birder) who produced photos of a duck we identify as a Lesser Whistling Duck taken in Malaysia which, he claims, is the same species as a bird he saw at the sewage works on Christmas Island. You may remember that a putrid unidentified duck was pulled from a tank there last year.
Mike Carter 30 Canadian Bay Road Mount Eliza VIC 3930 Tel (03) 9787 7136
To my experience the calls of hudsonia and nutalli are quite similar to each other but quite different from pica and mauretanica (I have no experience with asirensis and sericea). Maybe not so useful for the analysis of photos…
Cheers,
Nikolas
Speciation and sub-speciation of Northern Hemisphere magpies seems to be quite complex. The sequencing of mitochondrial DNA by Lee et al. (2003) suggests that the North American Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia) which looks almost identical to the Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica), and was previously considered conspecific, is genetically closer to the other North American species, the Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nutalli). The main Eurasian lineages have not been sufficiently sampled to clarify the status of such forms as the north-west African race (P. p. mauretanica) and the south-west Arabian race (P. p. asirensis), which could also be distinct species. The Korean race (P. p. sericea), is very distinct genetically from the other Eurasian forms, and may also be a separate species.
The genetic work of Lee et al. (2003) does not seem to have been taken into account by the BirdLife database. Therefore, I would agree with Mike that the bird at Port Hedland is more likely to be the Eurasian Magpie (P. pica) than the Black-billed Magpie (P. hudsonia).
I’ve pasted the title and abstract of Lee et al. below.
Kind regards, Stephen
Dr Stephen Ambrose Ambrose Ecological Services Pty Ltd Ryde NSW
Lee, S, Parr, CS, Hwang, Y., Mindell, DP & Choe, JC (2003). Phylogeny of magpies (genus Pica) inferred from mtDNA data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 29: 250-257.
Abstract
We investigated the phylogenetic relationships of species and subspecies of the cosmopolitan genus Pica using 813 bp of the mitochondrial genome (including portions of 16s rDNA, tRNA-Leu, and ND1). The phylogenetic relationships within the genus Pica revealed in our molecular analyses can be summarized as follows: (1) the Korean magpie (Pica pica sericea) appears basal within the genus Pica; (2) the European magpie (Pica pica pica) shows a close relationship to the Kamchatkan magpie (Pica pica camtschatica); (3) two North American species (Pica hudsonia and Pica nuttalli) shows a sister-group relationship; (4) most importantly, the European + Kamchatkan clade appears more closely related to the North American clade than to Korean magpies. Based on these results and genetic distance data, it is possible that members of an ancestral magpie lineage in East Asia initially moved north to form Kamchatkan magpies and then crossed the Bering land bridge to found North American taxa. At a later date, a group might have split off from Kamchatkan magpies and migrated west to form the Eurasian subspecies. The divergence between the two North American taxa appears to have happened no later than the divergence of Eurasian subspecies and both processes appear to have been relatively rapid. Rather than the formation of P. hudsonia by re-colonization from an Asian magpie ancestor, as suggested by Voous (1960), our data suggest a shared ancestry between P. hudsonia and P. nuttalli. Based on the above findings, including phylogenetic placement of P. hudsonia and P. nuttalli as nested within the larger Pica pica clade, and the lack of evidence suggesting reproductive isolation within the genus Pica, we believe that the current classification may be inaccurate. A more conservative classification would recognize one monophyletic species (i.e., P. pica) and treat P. nuttalli and P. hudsonia as subspecies (i.e., P. p. nuttalli and P. p. hudsonia). More extensive studies on the population genetics and biogeography of magpies should be conducted to better inform any taxonomic decisions.
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Yes, that is the bird we believe it to be but as BARC now follows the IOC list we use their name, Black-billed Magpie being used only for the American ‘species’. As Dave Torr points out BirdLife International don’t recognise this split and seem to have overlooked the American taxon in their distribution map!!!
Mike Carter 30 Canadian Bay Road Mount Eliza VIC 3930 Tel (03) 9787 7136
Interesting – IOC calls *Pica pica* Eurasian Magpie and *P. hudsonia*Black-billed – Bird Life does not seen to recognise the split although it does mention it as a synonym – and the map does not show the US range!
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Is this not it? http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=5745
Simon. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Simon Mustoe Tel: +61 405 220 830 | Skype simonmustoe | Email simon@bird-o.com
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