Taiwan blue magpie

The Taiwan blue magpie (Urocissa caerulea), also called the Taiwan magpie or Formosan blue magpie (Chinese: 臺灣藍鵲; pinyin: Táiwān lán què) or the "long-tailed mountain lady" (Chinese: 長尾山娘; pinyin: Chángwěi shānniáng; Taiwanese Hokken: Tn̂g-boé soaⁿ-niû), is a member of the crow family. It is an endemic species living in the mountains of Taiwan at elevations of 300 to 1200 m.

In the 2007 National Bird Voting Campaign held by the Taiwan International Birding Association, there were over 1 million votes cast from 53 countries. The Taiwan blue magpie defeated the Mikado pheasant in the vote, but the vote was not formally accepted.

Description

The Taiwan blue magpie is about the size of the European magpie, but with a longer tail. It is 64–65 centimeters in length. Wing measures 18–21 centimeters and tail measures 40 centimeters in length.

The plumage of male and female looks alike. Its head, neck and breast are black; eyes are yellow; bill and legs are red; the rest of the plumage on the bird is a rich dark blue to purple in color. It also has white markings on the wings and the tail.

Urocissa

Urocissa is a genus of birds in the family Corvidae, a family which contains the crows, jays and magpies. Established by Jean Cabanis in 1850, it contains the following species:

Urocissa is a combination of the Greek words for "tail" (oura) and "magpie" (kissa).

References

Red-billed blue magpie

The red-billed blue magpie (Urocissa erythroryncha) is a species of bird in the crow family, Corvidae. It is about the same size as the European magpie but has a much longer tail, one of the longest tails of any corvid. It is 65–68 cm (26–27 in) long and weighs 196-232 grams (6.9-8.2 oz).

Description

The head, neck and breast are black with a bluish spotting on the crown. The shoulders and rump are a duller blue and the underparts are a greyish cream. The long tail is a brighter blue (as are the wing primaries) with a broad white tip. The bill is a bright orange-red as are the legs and feet and a ring around the eye. This red can vary across its range to almost yellow in some birds.

Habits and habitat

The red-billed blue magpie occurs in a broad swathe from the northern parts of the Indian Subcontinent, and further eastwards. It ranges from the Western Himalayas eastwards into Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in evergreen forest and scrub in predominantly hilly or mountainous country. They nest in trees and large shrubs in a relatively shallow nest. There are usually three to five eggs laid.

Blue Magpie (ship)

The Blue Magpie was a 105-metre Japanese freighter owned by Jinyu Shipping Company. It was registered at Panama, and chartered to a Dutch corporation. In November 1983, it ran aground at Newport, Oregon, spilling 285,000 litres of crude oil into the coastal waters.

Incident

On 19 November 1983, the Blue Magpie was en route to Vancouver, to pick up lumber, after unloading a cargo of Salvadoran coffee in Long Beach, California. Caught up in a storm, the ship attempted to take shelter in Yaquina Bay, but smashed into a coastal rock jetty and broke apart, causing a major oil spill. The vessel's nineteen South Korean crew members were unharmed, and were retrieved from the wreck by helicopter.

It transpired from Coast Guard radio logs that the ship's captain, Kim Gap Bong, had been repeatedly warned of the danger of trying to enter the harbor. The captain, however, was insistent that he had to get out of the storm. The Magpie's chief officer, Kang Tae Jung, later explained that their situation had been desperate. The ship had spent nine hours on a violent sea, and was in serious danger of capsizing.

Taiwan

Coordinates: 23°30′N 121°00′E / 23.500°N 121.000°E / 23.500; 121.000

Taiwan (ⁱ/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a sovereign state in East Asia. The Republic of China, originally based in mainland China, now governs the island of Taiwan, which constitutes more than 99% of its territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands, following its loss of the mainland China territory in 1949 in the Chinese Civil War. This remaining area is also constitutionally called the "Free area of the Republic of China" which is not ruled by the Communist Party of China in Beijing.

Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west (mainland China), Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with a population density of 649 people per km² in October 2015.Taipei is the seat of the central government, and together with the surrounding cities of New Taipei and Keelung forms the largest metropolitan area on the island.

Taiwan Province

Taiwan Province (Chinese: 臺灣省 or 台灣省; pinyin: Táiwān Shěng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân Séng) is one of the two administrative divisions of the Republic of China (ROC) that are officially referred to as "provinces". The province covers approximately 69% of the actual-controlled territory of the ROC, with around 31% of the total population.

Geographically it covers the majority of the island of Taiwan as well as almost all of its surrounding islands, the largest of which are the Penghu archipelago, Green Island, Xiaoliuqiu Island and Orchid Island. Taiwan Province does not cover territories of the special municipalities of Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei, and Taoyuan, all of which are located geographically within the main island of Taiwan. It also does not include the counties of Kinmen and Lienchiang, which are located alongside the southeast coast of mainland China and administered as a separate Fujian Province (not to be confused with the PRC's Fujian Province).

Geography of Taiwan

Taiwan (historically called Formosa, from Portuguese: Ilha Formosa, "Beautiful Island", Portuguese pronunciation: [ˌiʎɐ fuɾˈmɔzɐ]) is an island in East Asia; it is located some 180 kilometres (112 miles) off the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. It has an area of 35,883 km² (13,855 sq mi) and spans the Tropic of Cancer. The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest. Taiwan proper makes up 99% of the territory of the Free Area of Republic of China, after the ROC lost its mainland China territory in the Chinese Civil War and fled to the island in 1949, and the country itself is commonly referred to as simply "Taiwan".

Taiwan is a tilted fault block, characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of five rugged mountain ranges parallel to the east coast, and the flat to gently rolling plains of the western third, where most of Taiwan's population reside. There are several peaks over 3,500 m, the highest being Yu Shan at 3,952 metres (12,966 ft), making Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island. The tectonic boundary that formed these ranges is still active, and the island experiences many earthquakes, a few of them highly destructive. There are also many active submarine volcanoes in the Taiwan Straits.