Black-backed Wagtail ?

[CyberDoc]

Hi, I was pleasantly surprised to come across one of my photographs labelled as a Black-backed Wagtail [Motacilla lugens]

http://www.mangoverde.com/birdsound/picpages/pic124-3-10.html

I dont recall the Sibley-Monroe or Oriental Bird Club lists having any wagtails classified as Black-backed Wagtail. So is this a new addition?

[Sumit]

Hi Cyberdoc,
This is a complex issue on which much debate has, and is taking place at this time. Without going into the finer scientific aspects, in a nutshell, there is disagreement amongst taxonomists on the alba/lugens complex. In this case, your bird is not even a pure lugens but treated under the White Wagtail complex as a subspecies of motacilla alba - 'motacilla alba alboides'. Motacilla lugens (motacilla alba lugens) is treated by some as a seperate species - 'Black-backed Wagtail' and complexities increase when you find that your bird is described by some as 'motacilla lugens alboides'.
Those who follow Clements Checklist 5th ed. will seperate the two species and those who follow Howard & Moore Checklist (3rd ed. 2003, by EC Dickinson) and Per Alstrom et al (2003, Pipits and Wagtails of Europe,Asia, and North Africa) will chose to treat both forms as races under M. alba. In the continuing story of lumping and re-lumping, just a few days ago, the American Ornithologists's Union (AOU) published its 46th Supplement to the AOU Check-List. In it, the AOU re-lumped the Black-backed Wagtail (M.lugens) with the White Wagtail (M. alba).
I think in this case we are safely guided by The Oriental Bird Club which considers 'lugens' to be part of the Motacilla alba complex. That would, in effect, mean that your bird is still best described as a White Wagtail of the ssp. alboides.
Hope that helps!
Sumit

[CyberDoc]

I think in this case we are safely guided by The Oriental Bird Club which considers 'lugens' to be part of the Motacilla alba complex.
Sumit

The Oriental Bird Club it is till the issue is sorted out.

The lugens/alba explanation is quite confusing:
http://www.birdskorea.org/lugens.asp

But the habitat description from the link is spot-on:
Furthermore, again based largely on personal experience, lugens tends to prefer"energised" rocky areas: coastal zone and concrete river banks.

I was mistaken about the Sibley-Monroe Classification which does include the Black-backed Wagtail [Motacilla lugens] as a separate species:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibley-Monroe_checklist_17