Black-throated Magpie-Jay, Calocitta colliei

Black-throated Magpie-Jay, Calocitta colliei. Photograph taken within the greater Puerta Vallarta area, Guerrero, March 2014. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Tom Bartol, Carlsbad, California.

Black-throated Magpie-Jay, Calocitta colliei. Photographs taken within a residential community in Alamos, Sonora, December 2017. Photographs and identifications courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

The Black-throated Magpie-Jay, Calocitta colliei, is a member of the Corvidae Family of Crows, Jays and Magpies, which has one hundred twenty-eight members placed in twenty-three genera, and of the two global species of the Calocitta Genus. They are known in Mexico as urraca hermosa carinegra.

The Black-throated Magpie Jay is mid-sized in stature. The sexes are similar, but the females have shorter tails. They have an all black face and throat with blue patches above and below the eyes. They have an exceptional long graduated tail (with the feathers being bright cobalt-blue with the outer feathers having a wide white margin, long black feathers on the forehead (with some being tipped in white or blue) that form an erect and slightly recurved crest. They have a large cobalt-blue malar patch, bordered at base by narrow white band; their nape and hindneck cobalt-blue heavily washed in white; their upperparts are cobalt-blue; and, their upperwing a bright cobalt. Their bill is black, their iris is dark brown, and their legs are black.

The Black-throated Magpie Jay is found in the lowlands and foothills in arid bush country, thorn-forests, deciduous open woodland and riparian forests at elevations below1,800 m (5,900 feet). They are nonmigratory. They forage at the tops of trees or in bushes with mixed species feeding on invertebrates and seasonal berries and fruits. The Black-throated Magpie Jay has been poorly studied and very limited information about their behavioral patterns and biology has been documented.

The Black-throated Magpie Jay is similar to the White-throated Magpie Jay, Calocitta formosa (lack all black head). They are known to hybridize with the White-throated Jay.

The Black-throated Magpie Jay is ENDEMIC to Mexico and found in northwest Mexico within the Pacific Slope in the States of Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima and Michoacán. There are also feral resident populations in Baja California and Baja California Sur.

From a conservation perspective the Black-throated Magpie-Jay is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations.