254. Common Magpie

Date         June 16, 2014

Location    top of Gondola, Barcelona, Catalunia, Spain

Pica pica

My two daughters went on a choir tour in Spain in the summer of 2014. I volunteered as a chaperone. Naturally, I was itching to do some birding while I was there, but I figured that my chaperoning duties would prevent me from doing that, so to avoid some unnecessary hassle, I left my binoculars at home. Overall, I think that was the right call. It would have been a pain to lug those around everywhere when 90% of the time I wouldn't be using them. I might have gotten a couple of more birds, but for the most part I was able to do fine without binoculars.

I did, however, buy a field guide (referenced below) to European birds. Bringing it along was definitely the right call, as there were a few opportunities to identify birds, and while I didn't have the guide with me while I was out and about, it was back at my hotel to aide in identification. It also was a convenient place for a temporary journal. The back of the book has a blank page on which I listed what, where, and when in pencil. I made a more permanent record when I got home.

Because there may be some confusion regarding the common names, I'll also be listing the Latin name for the 10 birds logged in Spain. This bird is a good example: it's listed as (Common) Magpie in the field guide, with "(Common)" in really light type, and it's called a Eurasian Magpie on Wikipedia.

So the first new bird I could positively identify was this magpie. Quite simple really, even without binoculars, since the other magpie in Europe is patterned the same but has much lighter hues.

The location was at the top of a hill that has a gondola ride. (We took buses up.) Nearby was the Olympic diving pool, and below was a wonderful view of Barcelona (just as you saw while watching the divers during the 1992 Olympics).

There was a small, grassy, park area there with many birds milling about. No doubt they are sometimes fed by visitors, as they were very tame. That was fortunate for me, without binoculars.

I actually saw the first magpie as we were driving up on the bus, near the side of the road.


Wikipedia: Eurasian Magpie


Amazon: Birds of Europe