Pat Bean's blog

Black-billed magpie ... Photo by Stephen S. Skrzdlo

Back in the 1980s, and a few years before I noticed birds lived among us, I was visiting a friend who lived alongside the Snake River.  As she was showing me her farm, I spotted some long-tailed black and white birds flying over the water. I thought they were magnificent.

My friend laughed, and said the birds were pesky magpies, cousins to crows, and that farmers despised them.

This was the first magpie I could recall seeing. And never had I watched such a sight as the one before me. The magpies, their dark feathers glistening with an iridescent sheen in the sunlight, were swooping, circling and diving above the water with a winged grace that astounded me.

A few weeks later, I found myself hanging out with a group of New Agers at a “Back to the Goddess Worship.” As a feet-on-the-ground, cynical journalist I wasn’t a believer, but these people were my friends. Besides there there wasn’t much else to do in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Night found me sitting beneath a starry sky and a blazing campfire on the rim of the Snake River Gorge when the workshop leader asked each of us to tell us what animal was their totem. She began by divulging that hers was a mountain lion, and then passed the talking stick to the next person in the circle. I listened in amazement as the women talked about bears, foxes, golden eagles and wolves.

I didn’t have an animal totem and decided when it was my turn to speak, I would simply say so and pass the stick along.

As soon as the wooden rod touched my hand, however, this voice from out of nowhere said: “Magpie.” It took a minute for me to realize the words were coming from my own mouth, and that I was continuing to speak.

“… because the magpie is loud and raucous like a Texan which I am and can be, is playful and intelligent as I hope I am, and its black and white colors range across the entire color spectrum, which to me represents a broadminded way of thinking, which I like to think is one of my better traits.” I was certainly broadening my thinking now I thought as I numbly handed the stick to the person on my left.

And that’s how the black-billed magpie, pica hudsonia, became my animal totem. True story.