Midwest · Mississippi Flyway
Are there magpies in Michigan?
Not as regular birds. Magpies in Michigan are missing from the everyday birdlife: across 20 million eBird records submitted in 2020–2024, magpies account for just 6 — Black-billed Magpie (4) and Red-billed Blue-Magpie (2) — well below the 25-record line this site uses to call a species regular.
Magpies are the long-tailed black-and-white members of the crow family. The Black-billed Magpie is a common bird across the West and northern Plains but essentially absent from the East, which is why so many people ask whether magpies occur in their state.
Magpies in Michigan: what the eBird records show
This site treats a species as regularly occurring in a state when it has at least 25 eBird records over 2020–2024 and is reported at a steady rate through at least part of the year. No magpie clears that bar in Michigan. The Black-billed Magpie and Red-billed Blue-Magpie have been reported, but at a combined 6 records in five years these are isolated reports — stray individuals or, for species native to other continents, escaped cage birds — not a population.
For comparison, the most-reported bird in the state, the Blue Jay, has 657,400 records over the same period, and even scarce residents typically pass 25 within a few months. A group that stays in the tens or single digits over five years is, for practical purposes, absent.
Where magpies live, they need no encouragement: they take suet, pet food, scraps, and anything else left out. Where they do not live, no feeder will bring one.
Michigan birds you will see instead of magpies
The species that dominate Michigan eBird records over the same 2020–2024 period, for a sense of scale.
Put side by side, the gap is the whole story: the Blue Jay alone has 657,400 Michigan records in 2020–2024, against 6 for every magpie species combined.
Magpies near Michigan: the nearest states
Among the states covered on this site, these have regular magpies, most species first:
Magpies in California — 3 regularly recorded species, led by the Yellow-billed Magpie with 55,636 eBird records.
Magpies in Colorado — 1 regularly recorded species, led by the Black-billed Magpie with 380,895 eBird records.
Magpies in Oregon — 1 regularly recorded species, led by the Black-billed Magpie with 53,927 eBird records.
Magpies in Michigan: FAQ
Are there magpies in Michigan?
Not as regular birds. Across 20 million eBird records from the state in 2020–2024, the group accounts for only 6 — Black-billed Magpie (4) and Red-billed Blue-Magpie (2) — far below the 25-record threshold this site uses for a regularly occurring species.
Where are the nearest magpies?
Among the states covered here, California (3 species, led by the Yellow-billed Magpie), Colorado (1 species, led by the Black-billed Magpie) and Oregon (1 species, led by the Black-billed Magpie).
Could I still see a magpie in Michigan?
Occasionally. The Black-billed Magpie has 4 state records in five years, so individual birds do turn up — but they are rare enough that a sighting is worth reporting to eBird with a photo.
More Michigan birds
Magpies in Michigan: sources
Every number on this page comes from the EOD – eBird Observation Dataset published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and distributed through GBIF under a CC BY 4.0 license: Michigan records from 2020–2024, retrieved 2026-09-18, for the families Corvidae. “Records” are individual eBird observations and reflect how often birders report a species, not a population count.