Azure-winged Magpies

Can someone tell me, is it possible that I have had two Azure-winged Magpies, in my garden in Hampshire this morning?  If not, what might they be please?  They were beautiful birds, a cat  asleep in garden, stopped them coming down, just sat in tree, camera not too hand, as usual!!

  • The picture Galatas put up in Feb.shows how the colours on our native bird can change in the light ,this may be the case here s no Azure birds have been reported on birding networks.

  • Teejay

    The long light blue tail and sandy body seals it for me the bird we saw may have escaped from someone’s collection but that is most defiantly what we saw.

    I have a fairly large garden and live near a 70 acre lake so we get many different types of birds in the garden, the most common bird visitors are Starlings, Wood Pigeons, Collared Doves and our common Magpie, as I look out of the window now, there are a pair of Magpies hopping around in the garden. I have seen 5 pairs of magpies in the garden at one time I think extremely unlikely that all three of us mistook such a familiar bird as our common magpie for the Azure Winged Magpie, the bird sat on the fence below me for at least 15 seconds so I had time to get a good look at him.

    The Azure Winged Magpie may physically resemble our common magpie but the colouring is quite different, that long light blue tail and the sandy coloured body leaves me in no doubt that the bird I saw was a Azure Winged Magpie

  • Hobbs, that's wonderful - what an amazing sighting!  It must be said that five pairs of regular Magpies at once must have been quite a sight as well.

  • I have never seen so many common magpies as I have in the last few years there numbers have increased over the last 5 years

  • A couple more not very good photos of an Azure-winged. The first was from the same place in Spain ...

    ..... and this rather scruffy specimen was in the Algarve.

    I don't think there's any way one of these could have got here on its own so it must have escaped from somewhere. If you take photos it might be worth keeping the camera handy in case you see it again.

  • Did you know there is also a separate Asian population, identical except for a white tip to the tail? It's a source of bafflement to ornithologists to have 2 far apart populations of birds.

    Agent Wing (may his grumpy little soul rest in peace) with WhistlyGirl behind him.


    IMG_0921 by MaisieHexagon, on Flickr


  • My Mother and I were in the kitchen this morning and just spotted what we believe to be an Azure-winged Magpie.

    Can you confirm this ?

     

    Thankyou

  • This was Shropshire :)

    Thankyou for confirming
  • Interesting how occasional sightings of these birds occur. I think it must be presumed that it's an escape from somewhere. They are quite common in southern Spain and Portugal but it's hard to imagine how they could have got here on their own.

  • Update on Azure Magpies: 2019 11/4/19

    There have been many sightings this April already of these fantastic Birds. It has to be remembered the Southern parts of the UK are more Mediterranean in climate than the Normal British Weather, because of consistent changes to southerly warm winds from Spain and North Africa. like last summer.

    The Two seen in a garden on the south coast, posted on a Birders face book yesterday by a happy watcher, showed no rings, so hardly escapees from a collection. I would certainly be on the look out for strangers from afar. By current climate trends, we bird lovers could reap the benefits of seeing regular rare birds, that "may" become indigenous or put in the list of regular summer visitors in time to Southern England. Corvids are very adaptable, and can usually look after themselves. be interesting to see how many reported sightings are seen this year !