Eastern Yellow Wagtail - BirdForum Opus

Adult male M. t. tschutschensis in breeding plumage
Photo © by bazanbirds
Ganseong, Gangwon Province, South Korea, 16 May 2010

Alternate names: Green-headed Wagtail, Yellow Wagtail (in part).

Motacilla tschutschensis

Identification

Head dark blue-grey, supercilium white, dull greyish-olive upperparts, throat white and lemon-yellow breast often spotted with olive.

Adult in winter plumage
Photo © by SeeToh
Kranji Sanctuary, Singapore, 16 December 2015

Distribution

Breeds in Alaska, Siberia and Mongolia. Winters to India, southeast Asia and Australia.
Recorded as a vagrant in Israel, Europe and California

Taxonomy

This species has been included in Yellow Wagtail (now named Western Yellow Wagtail) in the past.

Subspecies

Four subspecies accepted¹:

• M. t. plexa in northern Siberia primarily east of 84° E, winters in southeast Asia and perhaps to India
• M. t. tschutschensis in eastern Siberia to western Transbaikalia, southern Siberia, northern Mongolia, Kamchatka, Commander and northern Kurile Islands, and extreme northwestern North America, winters to China (possibly also Taiwan), the Philippines and southeastern Asia from Burma east to Indochina and south to Indonesia
• M. t. taivana in southeast Siberia and northern Japan, winters to south Asia and Indonesia
• M. t. macronyx in Ussuriland to northeastern Mongolia and central Manchuria, winters to southeast Asia and southeast China

Habitat

Various open habitats, lowland grassland and wet meadows.

Behaviour

Roosts communally, sometimes in large numbers.

Flight

Markedly dipping flight. Walks and runs, constantly dipping tail.

Diet

The diet includes small insects, flies and beetles.

Breeding

Territorial. They usually breed singly, nesting in tussocks, laying 4-8 speckled eggs. Nest built primarily by female. Both sexes incubate and feed young. Occasionally parasitized by Common Cuckoo

Vocalisation

Call is a thin buzzy tsweep, bzi or zi similar to calls of Citrine Wagtail; more raspy than Western Yellow Wagtail. Song from a perch is a short series of twittered notes.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2018. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2018. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Alström, P. & Mild, K. (2003) Pipits & Wagtails of Europe, Asia and North America. Identification and Systematics. Christopher Helm, London.
3. Badyaev, A. V., B. Kessel, and D. D. Gibson (1998). Eastern Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla tschutschensis), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.382
4. Bot, Sander & Groenendijk, Dick & Van Oosten, Herman. (2014). Eastern yellow wagtails in Europe: identification and vocalisations. Dutch Birding. 36. 295-311. PDF
5. California Bird Records Committee [CBRC] (R. A. Hamilton, M. A. Patten, and R. A. Erickson, eds.). 2007. Eastern Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla tschutschensis) in: Rare Birds of California, Western Field Ornithologists, Camarillo, CA: (retrieved from Rare Birds of California Online: http://www.wfopublications.org/Rare_Birds/Eastern_Yellow_Wagtail/Eastern_Yellow_Wagtail.html on 18 Setpember 2018).
6. Christidis et al. 2014. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, version 4.1 (Downloadable checklist). Accessed 18 September 2018 from https://www.howardandmoore.org/
7. del Hoyo, J. & Collar, N. (2018). Eastern Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla tschutschensis). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/1344120 on 19 September 2018).
8. Gill, F & D Donsker (Eds). 2018. IOC World Bird List (v8.2). doi : 10.14344/IOC.ML.8.2. Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
9. Harris RB, P Alström, A Ödeen & AD Leaché. 2018. Discordance between genomic divergence and phenotypic variation in a rapidly evolving avian genus (Motacilla). Molec. Phy. Evol. 120 183-195.

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2023) Eastern Yellow Wagtail. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 28 November 2023 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Eastern_Yellow_Wagtail

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