Moroccan magpies like Irish cousins

BIRD-WATCHING in Morocco last week I encountered some magpies.

A sky-blue patch of feathers behind each eye gave them an exotic Arabian Nights look. Apart from this, they seemed to be similar to their Irish cousins; noisy, cheeky and fearless, they competed for attention with bulbuls, spotless starlings and trumpeter finches around sun-drenched red dwellings and little patches of cultivation.

Except for a population in the mountains of Saudi-Arabia, the magpies of Morocco are the most southerly in the world. Their facial embellishments do not, however, entitle them to separate species status. The North African birds are deemed to be only racially distinct, their sub-species being known to science as Pica pica mauritanica.