Day 112: Yellow-Billed Magpie

There's a very distinctive black and white bird with a stripe of royal blue along the tail that I used to see frequently during my runs along the levee back when I was running long distances several years ago:

This week, I saw a cluster of the same birds over in West Sacramento during a morning run, and I did a little research to discover that they are yellow-billed magpies, which apparently are native to California.  I suppose that explains why they weren't a familiar bird to me from living in other areas of the county!

Here's the Wikipedia entry:

The yellow-billed magpie (Pica nuttalli) is a large bird in the crow family that is restricted to the U.S. state of California. It inhabits the Central Valley and the adjacent chaparral foothills and mountains. Apart from its having a yellow bill and a yellow streak around the eye, it is virtually identical to the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia) found in much of the rest of North America. The scientific name commemorates the English naturalist Thomas Nuttall.