The Azure-winged Magpie, a bird in the crow family, has the overall shape of the European Magpie (Pica pica) but has a glossy black top on the head, a white throat, light grey-fawn underparts beautiful azure blue feathers.
The Azure-blue Magpie occurs in two population groups separated by a huge geographical region. One population lives in western Europe, specifically in Spain and Portugal. The other population occurs over a much larger region of eastern Asia in most of China, Korea, Japan, and north into Mongolia.
The Azure-winged Magpie is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2012 by BirdLife International. This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). The population trend appears to be increasing, and hence the species does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
The Azure-winged Magpie is a bird in the crow family and has the overall shape of a European Magpie, but it is a bit more slender and has a proportionally smaller bill and legs. The most striking feature of these beautiful birds are their black caps and... Read more »
