Unlimited edition. 18 x 24 inch, museum-quality poster on matte paper.

While most folks think of the yellow-billed magpie as a black, white, and yellow bird, seen in sunlight, the iridescent blues and greens reveal themselves. These birds are as well dressed as they are outspoken.

The yellow-billed magpie belongs to the corvid family. Like their crow, raven, and jay relatives, magpies are highly intelligent birds and remarkable opportunists, especially when it comes to diet; they focus on insects and carrion, but also dine on fruit, small mammals, fledgling birds, eggs, human-discarded food scraps, and more. Little wonder magpies have generally flourished alongside human settlement and agriculture. Unfortunately, their intelligence and adaptability hasn’t saved them from persecution. Between 1968-2015, the yellow-billed magpie population dropped by 76%, and they continue to be shot or poisoned in rural California (their range is confined to the state’s famed Central Valley and part of the Southern Coast Ranges), where long-disproven myths about the birds attacking and killing livestock continue to (mis)color popular perception of the birds.

Note: These archival poster prints feature rich, appealing colors. I encourage customers to take care in handling them until they are framed/protected for display; the darker colors on the matte paper can be scratched. They ship rolled, so customers need to flatten them before framing (or have their framer do so).

Charitable Sales Model: Whenever one of these poster prints is purchased, a charitable contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost (or $3.60) is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges. Read more about my charitable sales model here.