Gray wagtail

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Gray wagtail
Female gray wagtail (Motacilla cinerea)

Female gray wagtail ( Motacilla cinerea )

Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Superfamily : Passeroidea
Family : Stilts and pipiters (Motacillidae)
Genre : Stilts ( Motacilla )
Type : Gray wagtail
Scientific name
Motacilla cinerea
Tunstall , 1771

The gray wagtail ( Motacilla cinerea ) or mountain wagtail is a songbird species from the family of stilts and pipiters (Motacillidae). The very long-tailed stilt, gray on the top and intensely yellow on the underside, inhabits fast-flowing, mostly forested waters and feeds primarily on insects and their larvae. It often breeds on weirs, bridges or mills. The distribution area extends from the islands of the Eastern Atlantic and the Atlas Mountains in North Africa over large parts of Eurasia , where the species is largely absent in Northern Europe , the European part of Russia and large parts of Central Asia . Most of the gray wagtails of Atlantic influenced Europe and the subtropical regions are resident birds , northern breeding populations and most of the Asian birds overwinter in the subtropical and tropical regions of Europe, Africa and Asia. The species has spread from the Central European Central Uplands to the North German Plain and Poland since around 1850, and from there opened up new breeding areas in the Netherlands , Northern Europe and the Baltic States . In the middle of the 20th century, the populations there fell sharply, but seem to have recovered since then. According to the IUCN, the species is not endangered.

description

Gray wagtail in youth dress

The gray wagtail is about 17–20 cm long, about the same size as a white wagtail , but at 9–10.5 cm, it is slightly more long-tailed and slimmer. The wing length is between 80 and 89 mm. The black beak measures between 15 and 17 mm, the legs and feet are flesh-colored to brownish horn-colored. The rear claw is quite long and curved. The iris is dark brown, the eye shows a white ring.

In the male of the nominate form , the upper side to the back is cool gray in the splendid plumage and slightly greenish-brown in the fresh plumage. The narrow stripe above the eyes is white, the reins dark gray to black. The black throat is separated from the gray upper side by a strong chin stripe. The rump and the upper tail coverts are greenish yellow and on the sides pure yellow like the lower tail coverts, which are particularly intense in color. The rest of the underside is also predominantly yellow, but lightened whitish towards the middle of the flank and sometimes washed over gray. The edge ceilings are gray like the upper side, the other upper wing ceilings are lined with black gray and lighter gray. The wings are similarly colored, but show a white area at the bases of the inner hand and the arm wings, which is not noticeable when the wing is folded, but becomes visible as a white wing band in flight. This can also be clearly seen on the underside of the wing. The umbrella feathers are lined with blackish and white to beige-white. The longest of the light gray under wing coverts have white tips. The middle three pairs of control feathers are black and partly lined with greenish-yellow in the fresh plumage, the outer three predominantly white and only the two inner ones at the base partly black.

The female in the breeding dress resembles the male. In contrast to that of the male, the throat is mostly whitish, but in many individuals there is also washed-out black on the edges and in a few, the throat is completely black. The underside is usually less vivid yellow, the flanks often more extensive white.

In the simple dress, the male also lacks the black of the throat, this is then often a bit reddish beige, as well as the yellow breast can be washed out a bit reddish beige and the stripe above the eyes is more beige. In contrast to the female in a simple dress, the light throat is usually clearly set off towards the breast. In the female, the ear covers, the stripe above the eyes, the throat and the breast are more beige-tinted and the yellow on the underside is less intense.

The youth dress is similar to the simple dress of the female, but the head and the back are browner and lighter, the stripe above the eyes is often indistinct and the lower beak is flesh-colored. Some individuals show a diffuse spot or band on the neck. The breast is mostly washed over with isabel color, the rest of the underside is whitish except for the light yellow under tail-coverts. The greenish yellow of the rump is less extensive than that of the adult birds.

Birds in the first winter still show a lot of beige on the head and chest and the yellowish underside is often not completely colored. The transitions to the adult dress are fluid. In the first breeding plumage, young gray wagtails can no longer be distinguished from adults in the field .

voice

The call of the gray wagtail is a hard, metallic "zitzitt" or "zezeze".

Subspecies

  • M. c. cinerea Tunstall , 1771 - Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor to the Caucasus and south to northern and southwestern Iran
  • M. c. melanope Pallas , 1776 - North Asia from the Urals to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and south to Mongolia and eastern China as well as mountain regions from Tien Shan to eastern Afghanistan and east along the Himalayas
  • M. c. robusta ( CL Brehm , 1857) - Kamchatka and Russian Far East south to Korea and Japan
  • M. c. patriciae Vaurie , 1957 - Azores
  • M. c. Schmitzi Tschusi , 1900 - Madeira
  • M. c. canariensis Hartert , 1901 - Canary Islands

ecology

nutrition

The food mainly consists of insects from rivers - flies , small beetles , dragonfly larvae , but also small crustaceans and mollusks . The birds also wade through the water and peck in search of food. Insects floating on the water surface can be picked up in flight.

Habitat and Distribution

Distribution areas of the
gray wagtail (green = breeding areas, dark green = year-round occurrence, blue = wintering areas)

Mountain wagtails can be found in fast-flowing waters in the mountains up to 2000 m and in the plains . They are widespread in Europe except for Scandinavia and northern Russia, as well as in Asia Minor, northern China and Japan. They are part migrants , they winter in Western and Southern Europe, in North and West Africa. In Central Europe you can also see them in winter.

Optimal habitats are shady, fast-flowing brooks and rivers surrounded by forest, with scree and gravel banks, a few deep and low-current spots and boulder islands that are temporarily dry. As a nesting site, the gray wagtail also needs structures such as steep banks, bridges, weirs and mills.

Breeding biology

Mountain stilt nest on a bank break
Gelege, Museum Wiesbaden collection

The female builds a nest in a hole in the ground or in a wall niche near the water from moss and grass and lines it with hair. Sometimes dippers or special nesting boxes are used to obtain old nests . Usually five yellow-brown, gray-brown speckled eggs are laid once or twice per breeding season between April and June, which the female or both parents incubate for 12 to 14 days. Both parents feed the nestlings until they are fully fledged after 11 to 16 days. Gray wagtails usually breed twice a year.

literature

Web links

Commons : Gray Wagtail ( Motacilla cinerea )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Martin Flade: The breeding bird communities of Central and Northern Germany - Basics for the use of ornithological data in landscape planning. IHW-Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-930167-00-X , p. 548.