Can anyone tell me if i have a Pied or White Wagtail please.
I think you'll find that the pied and the white are the same bird. I love the second picture!
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Is it me or pied wagtails attracted to concrete? I finished work other day at Manchester Airport and I saw a Pied bopping around the taxi rank. I tried to get a pic off the mobile but was too slow
Cheers, Jason
mmm thats true!
Wait til summer, I'll video birds (maybe sparrows) picking off dead flies of the train at the station lol..... Happened in Blackpool last year....
Hi-
it's a Pied- check out the ID article on Pied/ White in Birdwatching magazine september 2012
S
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This is a Pied Wagtail - which means that it is also a White Wagtail! ;o)
Pied Wagtails (Motacilla alba yarrellii) and continental White Wagtails (Motacilla alba alba) are two different subspecies of the same species - which confusingly is known as "White Wagtail" (Motacilla alba).
The continental subspecies, which are the only ones we tend to call White Wagtails are never as dark on the back as the bird in your photo, and also typically lack the extensive dark grey along the flanks.
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Thank you all :-)
there are more white wagtails in this country than most people think. One ringing site in Wiltshire (a sewage works) has a 3:1 ratio pied to white. It is a lot easier to tell them apart in the hand.
Simon Tucker
Hi- reference Simon Tucker's post - in autumn white wagtails pass through Britain in varying numbers ( some autumns better than others) and are definitely under-recorded/ overlooked as noted by the ringing data above
:)
Unknown said:there are more white wagtails in this country than most people think. One ringing site in Wiltshire (a sewage works) has a 3:1 ratio pied to white. It is a lot easier to tell them apart in the hand.
They can pass through in very good numbers during the spring and autumn, and a few occasionally stay to breed (sometimes as mixed pairs with Pied), but I'm not aware of any good evidence of them being recorded in any significant numbers during the winter.
There have claims of regular wintering made by a ringer/ringing group in Scotland, but the criteria used to identify 1st winter continental White Wagtails in that study have been questioned - not least because some of the birds ringed as "White" Wagtails have been seen again during the following spring after they have moulted into their adult Pied Wagtail plumage.
The birds I am referring to are from a sewage works in Wiltshire, which is ringed between January and March and the leader of the group has extensive experience of the bird both in the UK and on the mainland of Europe. There are numerous criteria used: rump colour, great coverts, tail length, wing length, crown etc. These are easier to identify when you have the bird in the hand and identification is never done on only one criterion: it has to be a combination. Svensson: Identification of European Passerines is the ringer's bible. Also, Van Duivendijk: Advanced Bird ID Handbook - The Western Palearctic both have excellent descriptions for separating the sub-species.