Friday, April 20, 2012

Thoughts on this one





Up Roils Head yesterday in heavy rain and photographed this wagtail. It looked very pale underneath which is what drew my attention. The rain was so bad I couldnt use my bins so relide on the camera to get some record shots. I returned home and phoned dave that I had had a possible White Wagtail. When I saw the blurred flight shot though I started to doubt myself (does it have a dark rump or is it the fact that the camera shake as blurred the image). I seem to remember reading somewhere about varible rump colour on White Wags but can not recall where, any other thoughts appreciated.

8 comments:

Brian Sumner . said...

With the deep smudging on the flank I,d go for Yarrellii but hard to say from the rear view angle. Probably have to go down as a : cud av bin :

Jim Welford said...

http://www.uk400clubonline.co.uk/File-Store/THE-SEPARATION-OF-WHITE-AND-PIED-WAGTAILS.pdf Think this may be the info you were thinking of.

martynbirder said...

White Wagtail for me, note the contrast between the black of the head and the mantle.Yarrellii would be much darker on the mantle at this time of year, whatever the age. The often used comment that White Wagtail has clean flanks is not always correct, they often have faint smudging where yarellii has heavy smudging (we saw lots with this faint smudging in Iceland). Seeing one in the rain is ideal as you get a true mantle colour,sunshine makes them look much paler and that's where we see most of them in sunny Europe and the Middle East.

Nice one, I've been looking at lots of Wagtails this last 6 weeks or so with no sucess

martynbirder said...

White Wagtail, the contrast between the head and mantle shows very well, the flank smudging looks faint, not heavy as in M.a.yarrelli. If this was a 1st summer female yarrelli the mantle would not be so clean, it would have blackish smudges also there would be no contrast between the black of the head and the mantle

it is usual in my experience for White Wagtail to show some faint flank smudging although in sunshine it is not very visible but would show well in the rain

nice one

AndyC said...

Definate white..........

heavy birder said...

Thanks guys I thought it was one at the time, just the flight shot made me doubt my own eyes.

AndyC said...

Ive also been looking for a white since late March,but not had anything like this one....

AndyC said...

So is it a first summer male white wagtail.?