Oriental Magpie

Oriental Magpie (Pica serica) is a long-tailed black-and-white magpie with iridescent wings and tail, native to eastern continental Asia. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It occupies farmland, woodland edges and settlements, taking insects, seeds, fruit, carrion and small animals and building a large domed stick nest in a tree. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).