Juvenile Eastern Yellow Wagtail - Bangkok 19 March 2023 (1 Viewer)

[Aladdin]

Dear Members and Bird watchers!

Attached pictures is birds that I have ID as Eastern Yellow Wagtail. Poor pictures kept for ID purpose only.

The reason for me to ID this as an Eastern Yellow Wagtail is the white breast looking to be moulting in to yellow. And in my book there is 6 different wagtails with yellow colour. Non breeding Citrine is white but have yellow head with no browse when they are turning in to breeding plumage

Remaining "yellow" wagtail that is white is the Eastern Yellow Wagtail that is whitish during the first winter and thus I have ID the birds as Eastern Yellow Wagtails that was born last spring (2022).

Picture #4 is a question mark as the bird have a lot of grey feathers on the belly and throat.

Anyone know is this is normal to have grey there moulting in to adult when the young are almost white/ cream coloured, at least in my book.

Kind Regards and happy birding!
Aladdin

 

[johnallcock]

Yes, moulting Eastern Yellow Wagtails. They are variable in the amount of white and yellow shown as they transition from winter (white) into breeding (yellow) plumage.

The grey you mention in Pic #4 looks like the feather bases to me. The overlying feathers have been lost and not yet replaced, so the greyish base to the feather is exposed. You can also see this to a lesser extent in Pic #1

 

[Aladdin]

Thank you very much johnallcock!

This clears it for me, going from winter to breeding! In my book it is only FIRST WINTER (white/ cream) and BREEDING. So, they go from winter to breeding, good, that answers another question I had.

Bird watching at Pathum Thani Rice Research Center, check list: https://ebird.org/checklist/S131252221

A huge area and I found it strange that I only found them in 2 areas quite far apart and there were many of them, I could count to about 40. And what I found strange was that they were all born last year (2022) as I though they were moulting from juvenile.

Now I know and it is not strange at all that all of them is moulting.

Highly appreciated!

Kind Regards and happy birding!
Aladdin