Flights of the Ghost Bird

I grew up in the tropics along the Central American flyway of migratory and resident birds, where you should be delighted but not gobsmacked to get a decent glimpse of a toucan or a slaty-tailed trogon.

I moved to eastern Washington, to go to college. There are birds, such as the Western Tanager, that migrate between the Pacific Northwest and the tropics. What a poetic and heroic image. They fly high, and at night. Now that’s a bird hard-wired for courage. But what caught my attention, up north, was the Magpie. I did not know what they were called, and when I learned I actually felt bad for the Magpies, to have been branded with such a stolid name. It’s not as though I was positioned well (as an undergraduate communications major) to organize a showdown with the Audubon Society.

But I’ll submit my petition here.

It’s not just that they’re beautiful, and mystical, but they’re also incredibly smart. I can tell this by spending time with them, after accepting the challenge to try to photograph them well. Nearly all of these photos were gathered during the nesting season in late winter, early spring. Magpie pairs mate for life, and in the nest-building days the males are in the lead in gathering sticks (typically hawthorn sticks and twigs if they’re available) and the females in charge of applying mud to the inner core of the nest.

A typical Magpie nest is the shape of a pine cone and about the size of a large backpack. It is constructed of mud and stucks. Hawthorn is abundant in the semi-arid landscape east of the Cascades mountains and their thorny branches are ideal for nest construction and protection from predators. It’s primarily the male’s task to bring the branches.

The females work with mud to plaster an inner core to the nest. Thus, a mud-capped magpie is more likely to be a female

Magpies are clever in getting (quietly) from points a to b when they feel the need for stealth. When hawks venture near their nests, they are both brave and creative in ways that confuse and unsettle the predators. They can also be loud and gregarious, to defend their zone, or simply to be social.

In the right angle of light, and usually in the mere blink of an eye, the magpies’ black tail and wing feathers are iridescent. The camera can capture that at higher shutter speeds.

For such a large bird, with a large wingspan, it’s remarkable how magpies can navigate in tight spaces, often flipping themselves sideways in the process