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Potential feldegg split? (1 Viewer)

JRE

JRE

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In 2005, a male Black-headed Wagtail motacilla flava feldegg turned up in south Devon. I and many others had great views of the bird on many dates. Here is a picture of the bird still moulting into full adult plumage. It later attained a full and spectacular black cap.

I was wondering, which authorities treat this as a full species, and is it likely to be split by the BOU in the foreseeable future?

Cheers,
Jyothi
 
The Yellow Wagtail complex is often mentioned as potentially splittable but the latest reputable studies suggest that the only likely split in it is between a huge block of mostly Western races and a few of the Eastern ones, so don't hold your breath.

John
 
Hey Jyothi,
i wouldn't get your ticking pencil sharpened just yet.
As far as I can tell none of the three major international checklists (Clements, Howard and Moore, sibley and Monroe) split feldegg although Clements and the AOU split the form from eastern asia as eastern yellow wagtail Motacilla tschutschensis.
The Assocation of European Rarities Committees (AERC, of which the BOU is a member) doesn't split it yet as a whole, but the dutch taxonomic committee CSNA does apparently accept a split of yellow wagtail into a massive 11 species!

From what I can gather feldegg is one of the more justifiable putative splits within the yellow wagtail complex so i would guess the BOU might do it eventually, but i shouldn't think it's imminent

James
 
Thank you very much guys, I admit I was hoping for my first armchair tick, but I'm well educated now! ;) A pity, one of the most stunning birds I've seen.
 
Jyothi,

I haven't got the information to hand, but off the top of my head (someone please correct me if I am wrong), DNA studies of the motacilla's revealed Black-headed to be most closely related to the Citrine group and not to 'Western Yellow Wagtail (flava)'.

Citrine Wagtail is a likely split into two species, Black-backed eastern form distinct both in plumage and DNA. Eastern Yellow Wagtail already split by some.
 
Yo James, how's life out east? Missing Ogston?

From BB 98:512 (Taxonomy for birders) - Although it seems that many birders regard this form [feldegg] as a split in waiting, there is little or no genetic evidence to support its separation from other western yellow wagtails.

and later...

...the wagtails serve as a caution against overactive splitting based solely on mtDNA.

Nope, no idea what any of that means!
 
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The split of yellow wagtails by mtDNA clade would be flava, tschutschensis, taivana; citrine: werae, citreola.
The article is available online:
http://www.cbs.umn.edu/eeb/faculty/ZinkRobert/Phylogeographic patterns in Motacilla.pdf

Personally, I regard it as unwise to split the Yellow and Citrine Wagtail along mtDNA-lines, which have nothing in common with phenotypes and call differences – it's overly simple to represent mtDNA history as taxonomic status. I believe the Dutch treatment (which does take phenotypes into account) disregards some eastern taxa (macronyx, plexa) as well.
 
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