THE MAGPIES
THE ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOUR OF BLACK-BILLED AND YELLOW-BILLED MAGPIES
By Tim Birkhead
Illustrated by David Quinn
Some minor shelf-wear but a very good first edition hardback in dust-wrapper.
1991 1st edition. 8vo (161 x 241mm). Pp270. Illustrated colour frontispiece by David Quinn, b/w photographs, b/w illustrations by David Quinn, maps, graphs, tables. Dark blue boards, spine titled in gilt and with gilt magpie motif. Dust-wrapper illustration by David Quinn.
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One of the scarcer volumes in the Poyser Monographs series.
"Magpies are unmistakable in their appearance, voice and extrovert, arrogant manner. While their persecution at the hands of gamekeepers over the last hundred years has made them wary and difficult to approach, a number of recent field studies, both in Europe and North America, have successfully revealed the intricacies of the magpie way of life. Two species of magpie feature in this book, the Black-billed Magpie, familiar to most Europeans, which occurs throughout much of the northern hemisphere, and the Yellow-billed Magpie, which is confined to California. Tim Birkhead has studied both species, and has produced a fascinating account of their ecology and behaviour. Many of the results from his ten year study of magpies in northern England are published here for the first time. Particularly revealing however is his comparison of the two species and their different races. Magpies occur in a wide range of habitats, including English farmland, the deserts of North America, the mountains of Saudi Arabia and the windswept plateaus of Tibet. As this book explains, magpies are able to exploit this diversity of habitats largely through their remarkably flexible social behaviour. [This book] covers all aspects of their lives, including their marital relationships, food hoarding behaviour, longevity and survival, nesting behaviour, breeding success and their controversial relationship with man. The text is supported by numerous photographs, diagrams and tables, and superb illustrations by David Quinn." (Publisher's blurb).
Contents include:- Introduction: magpies; Nest spacing and territorial behaviour; Social behaviour: breeding birds; Social behaviour: non-breeding birds; Feeding and food hoarding; Magpie populations; The breeding cycle: nests, eggs and incubation; The breeding cycle: chicks and their care; The breeding cycle: breeding success; Factors affecting success: bird and territory quality; Magpies and man; Comparisons and conclusions. Appendix 1: Geographical variation in magpies; Appendix 2: Morphological characteristics of male and female Black-billed Magpies; Appendix 3: Body weight of male and female magpies in various locations; Appendix 4: Differences in body weight and size between adult and first-year Black-billed Magpies; Appendix 5: Mean weight of 14-da-old magpie chicks in the Sheffield study; Appendix 6: Differences in numbers of Black-billed Magpie chicks hatched and fledged in the Sheffield study; Appendix 7: Breeding success of Black-billed Magpies in the Sheffield study; Appendix 8: Breeding success for first and repeat breeding attempts within a season, for magpies in the Sheffield study; Appendix 9: List of Latin names; References; Index.