Magpie, black-billed

The black-billed magpie seems unusually sensitive to famphur. Dead famphur-poisoned magpies contained as much as 290 mg famphur/kg liver FW, 4770 mg/kg gizzard FW, and <0.2 mg/kg muscle or fat (Hill and Mendenhall 1980). There is a growing body of literature on adverse effects on magpies from pour-on (13.2% famphur) applications along the backline of cattle to control cattle warbles at the recommended rate of 0.326 mL/kg BW, not to exceed 118 mL/animal — equivalent to 43 mg/kg BW, not to exceed 15.6 g/animal (Felton etal. 1981 Henny etal. 1985 Seel 1985 Smith 1987). Felton etal. (1981) documented three occasions when dead birds were found after pour-on-famphur treatment of cattle against warble flies ... 

Ring-necked pheasant, Phasianus colchicus 6.5 (95% Cl of 3.9-10.8) mg/kg BW single dose Black-billed magpie, Pica pica single dose LD50 1 f... 

Black-billed magpie Ethanethiol 8400 Snyder and Peterson,... 

Birds such as nuthatches, nutcrackers, and jays store food by buying seeds such as acorns, beechnuts, and pine seeds in the ground and find it later very well. A single Clark s nutcracker, Nucifraga columUana, buries as many as 33000 pinon seeds in up to 3750 different caches (Vander Wall, 1982). Experiments have shown that these nutcrackers use memory (Tomback, 1980), visual cues (Vander Wall, 1982), and probably little olfaction to locate buried food caches. Other birds use olfaction. Black-billed magpies, ica pica, discovered buried suet or raisins better when the cache was scented with cod liver oil (Buitron and Nuechterlein, 1985). 

Snyder, G. K. and Peterson, D. T. (1979). Olfactory sensitivity in the black-billed magpie and in the pigeon. ComparativeBiochemistry andPhysiologyA 62,921-925. 

Australian magpie, Gymnorhina tibicen, 800 Black-billed magpie. Pica pica, 211, 279, 290, 446, 801 Pica sp., 203... 

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