Yellow-bill Magpie (David Zittin, Santa Clara County 2019)
You don’t think much about the birds occurring where you live. This species only occurs in a small area of California. Whenever I run into someone who has come a long distance and is excited about seeing the Yellow-billed Magpie, it amazes me because they are just another local bird for me. The same occurs when I go bananas over encountering a Dickcissel in Texas or a Fish Crow in Florida. One man’s rarity is another’s common bird.
Its cousin, the Black-billed Magpie has a much wider distribution over several lower states in the west, Canada, and up into Alaska.