white wagtail or pied? (1 Viewer)

[scary-canary]

Can anyone help me decide if the wagtails I see in Dorset are pied or white? I'm happy with pied when they are black backed or around the neck, but many of the birds around Longham seem to have grey backs and no black on at all. Field guides (Collins) don't help much. Are white wags resident in Dorset?

 

[Phil Bishop]

Almost certainly Pied. Females and first winter birds will have greyish backs.
White Wagtails are primarily seen on passage in spring and autumn, and a few have already been reported recently.
On rare occasions, White have bred, and there have been reports of wintering (though one I saw a couple of years ago in Minehead had supposedly been ringed as a first winter White but was clearly Pied-young birds can be very difficult to id).

 

[James Lidster]

Pied Wagtail is resident in Dorset, White Wagtail is a spring and autumn migrant, with birds turning up anytime now (see Portland Bird Obs website for photos last week), then returning in (mainly) sep before the bulk of any Pied Wagtail movement (having just said that Pieds are resident in Dorset there is still movement).
There was a mixed pair breeding on Brownsea Island in the late 1990's (1999?) but mid summer records are not normal.
There has been a line of thought recently that a large % of wintering birds in the UK are also White Wagtails, but some of them are so Pied like that if that is the case then i can't ID White Wagtails, which never seems a problem here in Holland, Morocco, Sweden, Gambia, Spain etc. This wintering information comes from ringing information of birds identified in the hand. Most birders/ringers i know dont put much faith in the article.
So in short, and especially around Longham, there is a good chance that you will see both over the next few weeks. Im not sure what the best 'current' ID article is, but im sure someone on here will know.
Cheers
James

 

[Parker]

Hi SC,
No White Wags aren't resident in Dorset. They are seen in the Spring & Autumn. They are generaly alot cleaner, smarter looking birds. The mantle is a pale clean grey with a sharp border with the black nape. The rump is the same colour as the mantle, very dark grey or black in Pied. Also the flanks are white with maybe a touch of light grey as opposed to the wholely grey flanks of Pied.

Cheers, Neil.

 

[scary-canary]

Thanks everyone - anyone got an article with pictures? I saw the pix on portland website and those two birds are very distinctive, but it's the intermediates that I want to know one way or another. I'll try and get some pictures of the types i mean.
Chris

 

[Acrocephalus]

Hi,

I do not know if this could be interesting to you. I remember when I posted the following request on behalf of bird ringer from Slapton, England two years ago; I received a PM from a ringer from Germany stating that they caught some suspicious White Wagtails there in southern Germany (also as breeders), sometimes closely resembling Pied Wagtails. And they do not know whether this is a variation of White Wagtail or influence of Pied Wagtail. He told me that he was willing to write a note on this situation. May be you have a kind of the same situation there in Dorset? Just a thought.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=109825

 

[RobertaG]

I had a similar query a short while ago and posted some pics - any help?

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=161603

Roberta

 

[dan houghton]

Intermediates

On the subject of possible intermediates, here's a bird I photographed today in Hampshire. Given the obvious demarcation between the black and grey on the nape it is a male. The grey upperparts appeared just a bit too dark for a 'classic' White.

It was often accompanied by a classic female White which can be seen in the background in one of the photos. It was darker on the upperparts than this female yet paler than a female yarrellii that was also present.

Although being darker grey on the rump area, it was not black.

 

[Southern Frogmouth]

Dan,

The distinct contrast between the nape and the mantle works for sexing alba but not yarrellii. 1st summer yarrellii females can and do certainly show this.

However, this bird is a male alba as the rump and uppertail-coverts are too pale for yarrellii and although darker thean the upperparts this is within the variation of alba.

Roy

 

[dan houghton]

Cheers Roy

It didn't strike me as a classic male White, though shade of the upperparts aside, everything else seemed ok. I'm not too up on just how much variation there is within White Wags.

Dan

 

[Southern Frogmouth]

Hi Dan,

No problem. Being honest the key thing is to also be au fait with the variation of yarrellii. Every year a good percentage of the alba claimed at Tring Res turn out to be 1st summer female yarrellii. However you are right the variation of alba is also a problem and some are very close to pale yarrellii. I have heard it suggested that the genetic difference between the two is large enough to merit specific status, but haven't seen this in print and so reserve judegement on that. If they ever do get split then I think that county recorders are in for a headache.

 

[Xenospiza]

I saw birds in the Netherlands this weekend that were this shade of grey: definite alba. I must admit I tend to err on the side of caution!