On Mon, 27 Mar 1995, WHITLOCK. PETER L. wrote:

> Chris -
> Dennis's suggestion about your birds being parakeets sounds good,
> but I know that if you were in Boise I would say with very little
> doubt that you saw magpies. Black-billed magpies are as common here
> as blue jays back east. Their tails remind me exactly of the tails I
> saw on anis in Puerto Rico a couple years ago, and they are so noisy
> that Boiseans commonly express wanting to shoot them. I've heard
> that black-billeds are unheard of in Seattle, but I wonder if maybe
> yellow-billed magpies might visit there. Both species are beautiful
> black corvids with big white wing patches and bellies. Anyway,
> that's my guess.
> - Peter Whitlock
> Raptor Research Center
> Boise State University
>


Peter,

Good suggestion based on my description - I should have put "not magpies"
in the original description. I saw and heard them well enough to
eliminate that - much too small, wrong flight style, no white patches
(which would have been visible at the distance I saw these birds), wrong
calls. As to Dennis's description of c.f. parakeet flight calls as
screeches - these were *not* screeches that I heard, but I probably can't
describe the calls well enough to help too much. A steady squawking
would not be too far off, though. The birds flew close together, fast
and direct, calling constantly. I seem to remember some parakeets in
Puerto Rico (canary-winged in that case) behaving the same, which is
probably why I grasped at the parakeet idea. If the local ones only
screech, then I guess I am stumped.

Chris Hill
Seattle, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu