Magpies are not common out there in Nebraska, and they are not at all in cities like they are in Europe. I did find one more leaving Scott's Bluff going East to Bridgeport.
I had found my first magpies to document in 2003 on a trip we made to Alberta. I had found them in Colorado after that. But only now in Nebraska.
In my early days of birding I have the first 100 or so birds listed, not in very good order. But I had yet to go on Audubon trips locally and had not sought a lot of birds in Missouri. So this list of birds, which are from that trip, is a bit comical, for "lifers." It took me years to see avocets again, in 2009. The first bird on the trip list was actually lifer 43. So that 1 is Lifer 43 and the last from the trip Lifer 68.
- yellow-bellied
sapsucker (June 2003 Manitoba)
- gray
catbird (Alberta)
- yellow
warbler (Manitoba, other birds were MO a year or two later)
- spotted
towhee (Alberta)
- black-billed
magpie (Alberta)
- ring-billed
gull (Alberta)
- Clark’s
nutcracker (Alberta)
- Gray
Jay (Alberta)
- Common
Raven (Alberta)
- Song
sparrow (Alberta)
- Chipping
Sparrow (Alberta)
- Great
horned owl (Alberta, mobbed)
- American
avocet (Saskatchewan)
- Canvasback
(Saskatchewan)
- double-crested
cormorant (Saskatchewan)
- Lazuli
bunting (North Dakota)
- white-breasted
nuthatch (ND)
- black-capped
chickadee (ND)
- northern flicker (Nebraska) THEN MISSOURI:
- ruby-throated
hummingbird (Sep 2003)
- common
nighthawk
- red-breasted
nuthatch
- wood
thrush
- american
kestrel
- carolina
wren
Carolina wrens were in my yard! Why did I not bother to write it down before!
I saw a lazuli bunting on that trip, and it is the only one I have seen so far. I don't have a date for it so it does not appear on my eBird list.
