Dear all,
I saw a striking Yellow Wagtail this morning that I'm trying to fit to a subspecies or at least a 'characters of' scenario.
This wagtail was associating with four summer plumaged Water Pipits and moved off with them after only a few minutes. So, time was brief and the bird was active all the time. Strangely enough, it was so different looking that I actually thought it was a warbler at first instead of a wagtail.
Features I noted:
Head dull blue-grey with an obvious dark patch over the eye and a barely discernable whitish supercilium. The throat was whitish and the underparts a pale yellow, much less intense than 'our' Yellow Wagtail. The upperparts were a curious mix of brown and green, the green showing quite distinctly on the mantle from time to time. The central tail feathers were black with contrasting white outer tail feathers.
I did actually take 30 seconds of video of it and have attached a poor record shot taken in mist - the actual video isn't too bad but the still doesn't have much more use than to give an idea of what the bird was like. The description above gives the salient features. The wagtail looked for all the world like a Lesser Whitethroat due to the eye mask. In actions it never stopped still and was actively slipping through the grass while a single Yellow Wagtail nearby was a slowcoach by comparison.
The possible candidate that seems to fit this bird is one of the Eastern forms of Yellow Wagtail, 'simillima' , a photo of which appears in Birding World vol 3 no 8 page 278 for comparison. Other forms don't seem to fit this bird but I'm open to opinions. Conventional blue-headed wagtails I've seen have been brighter yellow than this bird with a paler, more powder blue head.
Thanks,
Lancey
I saw a striking Yellow Wagtail this morning that I'm trying to fit to a subspecies or at least a 'characters of' scenario.
This wagtail was associating with four summer plumaged Water Pipits and moved off with them after only a few minutes. So, time was brief and the bird was active all the time. Strangely enough, it was so different looking that I actually thought it was a warbler at first instead of a wagtail.
Features I noted:
Head dull blue-grey with an obvious dark patch over the eye and a barely discernable whitish supercilium. The throat was whitish and the underparts a pale yellow, much less intense than 'our' Yellow Wagtail. The upperparts were a curious mix of brown and green, the green showing quite distinctly on the mantle from time to time. The central tail feathers were black with contrasting white outer tail feathers.
I did actually take 30 seconds of video of it and have attached a poor record shot taken in mist - the actual video isn't too bad but the still doesn't have much more use than to give an idea of what the bird was like. The description above gives the salient features. The wagtail looked for all the world like a Lesser Whitethroat due to the eye mask. In actions it never stopped still and was actively slipping through the grass while a single Yellow Wagtail nearby was a slowcoach by comparison.
The possible candidate that seems to fit this bird is one of the Eastern forms of Yellow Wagtail, 'simillima' , a photo of which appears in Birding World vol 3 no 8 page 278 for comparison. Other forms don't seem to fit this bird but I'm open to opinions. Conventional blue-headed wagtails I've seen have been brighter yellow than this bird with a paler, more powder blue head.
Thanks,
Lancey
