Oriental Magpie (Pica serica)

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Not to be confused with Oriental magpie-robin.

Oriental magpie
Adult in Daejeon (South Korea)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Corvidae
Genus: Pica
Species:
P. serica
Binomial name
Pica serica
Gould, 1845
Synonyms

Pica pica serica (see text)
Pica pica jankowskii[1]
Pica pica japonica[1]

The Oriental magpie (Pica serica) is a species of magpie found from southeastern Russia to eastern China, Korea, Taiwan, and northern Indochina and Myanmar. It is also naturalised in Japan. Other names include Korean magpie[2] and Asian magpie. The scientific name serica means "silky [texture]";[3] this is the original spelling,[4] though sometimes erroneously "corrected" to sericea.[1]

Taxonomy and systematics

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Like the other magpies, the Oriental magpie is a member of the large radiation of mainly Holarctic corvids, which also includes the typical crows and ravens (Corvus), the nutcrackers (Nucifraga), and the Old World jays. The long tail might be plesiomorphic for this group, as it is also found in the tropical Asian magpies (Cissa and Urocissa) as well as in most of the very basal corvids, such as the treepies. The unique black-and-white pattern of the "monochrome" magpies is an autapomorphy.[5][6]

The Oriental magpie was first described as a species, based on specimens collected in Amoy (now Xiamen) in southeastern China in 1844.[4] Due to its similarity to the Eurasian magpie in plumage, it was reduced to a synonym of it by Richard Bowdler Sharpe in 1877,[7] and then later more generally as a subspecies of it.[1]

A 2018 study of DNA sequences of all the taxa in the genus Pica led to the split-up of the genus into multiple species, including the Oriental magpie, separated from the Eurasian magpie. The study placed the Oriental magpie as sister to the Asir magpie — black-rumped magpie duo, with these three then sister to the group comprising Eurasian magpie and the two North American magpie species (black-billed and yellow-billed magpies), and finally with the Maghreb magpie as basal in the whole genus.[8]

It has two subspecies:[9]

  • Pica serica serica Gould, 1845 — the south of the species range, from northern Myanmar east to eastern China and Taiwan, and south to northern Indochina.
  • Pica serica anderssoni Lönnberg, 1923 — the north of the species range, in southeastern Russia, far northeastern China, and the Korean Peninsula.

The two subspecies are very similar and intergrade extensively, with P. s. anderssoni being slightly larger on average and a little paler.[1]

Description

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In flight, showing the white wing patches and the pale grey rump

It is 45 cm long. Compared to the Eurasian magpie, it is slightly smaller, with a proportionally shorter tail and longer bill and tarsi (lower legs), and darker with less white in the plumage.[4][1] The back, tail, and particularly the remiges show (according to source) either bluer, less green iridescence compared to Eurasian magpie,[4] or conversely, more green.[1] The rump plumage is mostly black, with narrow, often greyish-white band, which connects the white shoulder patches as in its relatives.[2] The Oriental magpie has the same call as the Eurasian magpie, though somewhat softer.[1]

Significance in East Asian culture

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In China, magpies are seen as an omen of good fortune.[10] This is reflected in the Chinese word for magpie, simplified Chinese: 喜鹊; traditional Chinese: 喜鵲; pinyin: xǐquè, in which the first character means "happiness". It was the official ‘bird of joy’ for the Qing dynasty. Qixi Festival, a holiday in China celebrating lovers, is based on the folktale The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, in which a bridge of magpies reunite the lovers every year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

In Korea, the magpie (까치, "kkachi") is celebrated as "a bird of great good fortune, of sturdy spirit and a provider of prosperity and development".[11] In the same vein of bringing fortune and luck, Korean children were also taught that when you lose a tooth, to throw it on the roof singing a song for the magpie (까치야 까치야 헌이 줄게). The bird will hear your song and bring you a new tooth.[12] It is also a common symbol of the Korean identity, and has been adopted as the "official bird" of numerous South Korean cities, counties and provinces. According to a Korean folktale, magpies formed a bridge to help two star-crossed lovers reunite.

Since 2023, the bird is the national bird of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,[13][14] replacing the Eurasian goshawk which was the previous national bird from 2008.

In Japan, Oriental magpie is a naturalised species, first introduced to northwestern Kyushu about 400 years ago by Korean immigrants.[1][15][16] A smaller, more recently introduced population has been found in southern Hokkaido since the early 1990s, probably resulting from birds arriving on timber cargo ships from Primoriye.[15] It is called Kasasagi 鵲,[16] the same name as is used for the Eurasian magpie (Pica pica).

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hoyo, Josep del; Elliott, Andrew (1992). Handbook of the Birds of the World: Bush-shrikes to Old World sparrows. Vol. 14. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. p. 605. ISBN 978-84-96553-50-7.
  2. ^ a b Bangs, Outram (1932). "Birds of western China obtained by the Kelley-Roosevelts expedition". Field Mus. Nat. Hist. Zool. Ser. 18 (11): 343–379. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.3192.
  3. ^ Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 354. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  4. ^ a b c d Gould, John (1844). "[Birds from Amoy, China]". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. pt.12-15 (1844-1847). Academic Press: 2. ISSN 0370-2774. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  5. ^ Ericson, Per G.P.; Jansén, Anna-Lee; Johansson, Ulf S.; Ekman, Jan (2005). "Inter-generic relationships of the crows, jays, magpies and allied groups (Aves: Corvidae) based on nucleotide sequence data" (PDF). J. Avian Biol. 36 (3): 222–234. doi:10.1111/j.0908-8857.2001.03409.x. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-10. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
  6. ^ Jønsson, Knud A.; Fjeldså, Jon (2006). "A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri)". Zoologica Scripta. 35 (2): 149–186. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2006.00221.x.
  7. ^ Sharpe, Richard Bowdler (1877). "15. Pica". Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum. 3: 62. Retrieved 18 February 2026.
  8. ^ Song, Gang; Zhang, Ruiying; Alström, Per; Irestedt, Martin; Cai, Tianlong; Qu, Yanhua; Ericson, Per G. P.; Fjeldså, Jon; Lei, Fumin (2018). "Complete taxon sampling of the avian genus Pica (magpies) reveals ancient relictual populations and synchronous Late‐Pleistocene demographic expansion across the Northern Hemisphere". Journal of Avian Biology. 49 (2): 1–14. doi:10.1111/jav.01612. ISSN 0908-8857. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  9. ^ AviList Core Team (2025). "AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025". doi:10.2173/avilist.v2025. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  10. ^ "春蚕、喜鹊、梅花、百合花有什么象征意义？" [Silkworms, magpie, plum blossom, lily. What symbolic meaning?] (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2017-08-31. Retrieved 2018-07-01.
  11. ^ Winterman, Denise. "Why are magpies so often hated?". BBC News Magazine. Magpies have a dubious reputation because they are a bit of both. Over the years they have been lumped in with blackbirds
  12. ^ "A Baby Tooth for a Bird". Once the tooth was extracted, the child was asked to throw it out onto the roof while singing a rhyme to a magpie.
  13. ^ N. Korean stamp on national bird
  14. ^ MBC (13 April 2023). "북한 국조 참매에서 까치로 국가상징물 변경 [김팀장의 북한확대경]" [North Korean National bird changed from Eurasian goshawk to oriental magpie as national symbol [Team Lead Kim's Magnifying Glass on North Korea]] (in Korean). Retrieved 10 April 2025.
  15. ^ a b Kryukov, A. P. (2025). "Genetic variation and phylogeography of the magpie's genus Pica in the Holarctic". Vavilovskii Zhurnal Genetiki I Selektsii. 29 (4): 578–593. doi:10.18699/vjgb-25-61. ISSN 2500-0462. PMC 12280223. PMID 40697942.
  16. ^ a b Massey, Joseph A.; Takano, Shinji (1982). A Field Guide to the Birds of Japan. Tokyo: Wild Bird Society of Japan / Kodansha. p. 300. ISBN 0-87011-746-7.
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  • Media related to Pica serica at Wikimedia Commons

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