Habitat use and population dynamics of the Azure-Winged Magpie ...

2.1.2 Species Distribution
The species has a disjunct distribution (Fig. 2.2a): they are present on the Iberian Peninsula
(central & southern Spain and Portugal) and widely distributed throughout eastern Palearctic Asia
(Fig. 2.2b). Their northern range runs from the extreme northwest of Mongolia (Uliasutay) east to
the south of Lake Baikal, across northern Mongolia and Transbaikalia to the Khabarovsk region,
with a northern boundary following the Amur River Valley. The far-eastern range extends south
over Ussuriland, Korea and much of eastern China, then west to extreme east Qinghai and south
Sichuan, with a southern boundary following the valley of the Yangtze to Shanghai. In Japan they
are only present in Honshu (main island of Japan) although up to the 1950s, the species was
common in Kyushu but is now locally extinct, probably as a result of competition with the
introduced black-billed magpie, Pica pica (Madge & Burn, 1994).
Figure 2.1 Morphological differences between juvenile (left) and adult (right) Cyanopica cyanus
cyanus in Khonin Nuga, Northern Mongolia. Photo courtesy of Gantulga Bayandonoi.
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