Citrine Wagtail - revisited

Post date: Oct 13, 2010 9:42:13 PM

Having undertaken seemingly more twists and turns than a Skylark with a Merlin on its arse, a close re-assessment of the photos (prompted by correspondence from some excellent sources), together with the circumstances of the sighting, has led me to reinstate the claim of the bird being a Citrine Wagtail and not White, as was widely mooted on the Bird Forum. I caved all to easily, considering it was my bird, and conformed to the opinion of the majority rather than trusting in what I actually saw, and supporting that with a good case. So here I’ll put a bit more ‘flesh’ on the bones of the sighting and state my case, albeit a bit late.

On initial seeing the bird I immediately thought it looked good, especially as there was a pale edging to the ear coverts leading around to the upper breast , albeit not as bright as most, but it was there (there is marked variation in this feature, as shown below).

The bill appeared long, finely pointed and thick based, and the breast was clear apart from a dark ‘pinch’ as in Short-toed Lark on the upper breast. Instead of carefully detailing the finer points of the bird I went straight for the camera (with cars coming up behind and towards the bird) Unfortunately the bird then flew, faffed around in flight and headed over the field towards an area of wet meadow with a drainage ditch. I headed over to this area and reached it within 10 minutes (it was p****ing down by now) and as I reached the drainage ditch (it is a very short, fairly steep sided ditch only about 2 ft wide!) out of sight, I heard several harsh, abrupt flava wagtail like calls which I assumed were from the bird. To view the ditch I would have had to approached it very closely which I was sure would flush the bird which I did not want to do. Wanting to phone the local birders, I'd made a school boy error and left my phone in the car. It was another 10-15 minutes until I returned with 3 local birders, but typically when we got to the ditch there was no sign of the bird. A search during the next 35 minutes produced no further sightings but the call was heard independently by two of the others from a flooded, unlifted potato field. There were no futher attempts to locate it as the light was diminshing in the constant heavy drizzle and the field still had a crop in it.

Going back to the photo, it is clearly not of the highest quality, remember, the photo was taken through a drizzle covered curved front screen of a Peugot 307 (I new I should have bought a flat screen Beetle!) but there is enough in there to make some pretty sound judgements on. Much was made of the amount of white on the wing, but considering over exposure, and shooting through the screen undoubtedly causing flarig of the lightest areas, the amount of white is comparable with images of Citrine sp. For example:

This bird shows clean white edges to the black centred greater coverts and tertials, and broad white tips to the median coverts. Also note the clean white under tail coverts (Eastern Yellow Wagtail would usually show a yellow wash to these) relatively long black bill and the dark dash above the superscilium directly above the eye. The ear covert frame and ‘hollow’ ear coverts are particularly distinct on this bird.

As stated the intensity and extent of the superscilium is variable:

This bird shows a rather short , buff superscilium with the ear covert frame rather subdued at the rear of the ear coverts. This can be due to actual pluamge variation but is also affected by the birds stance and angle of observation Note the pale buffy throat and upper breast, the intensity of the white in the coverts on this deliberately blurred image and again the dark dash over the superscilium.

The Hungry Hill bird shows all these features mentioned above, and although not clear, there is the hint of the ear covert frame at the rear of the coverts in the picture which was noted on the initial viewing. Coupled with the call heard and, although slightly circumstantial, the habitat sought when the bird was flushed, I am confident that the bird was indeed a Citrine Wagtail as I first suspected.

I would like to thank, for their comments and opinions, Mike Crew, Iain Livingstone and particularly Richard Millington for highlighting the features of the bird and restoring my faith in my own ability.