Yellow wagtail
| Yellow wagtail | ||||||||||||
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Yellow wagtail ( Motacilla flava flava ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Motacilla flava | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The Yellow Wagtail ( Motacilla flava ) is a bird art from the family of Wagtail (Motacillidae).
description
The species is very diverse. There are several subspecies , males, females and young animals. The throat and chest are bright yellow in all males and pale yellow in females. The back is pale green in all subspecies. The body length of adult animals is 15 to 16 cm.
ecology
nutrition
Yellow wagtails feed mainly on flies and other delicate insects that are scared off by grazing cattle . During the hunt, the bird walks with graceful steps and wiggles its tail, which is the shortest compared to other European stilts.
habitat
The species loves wet meadows and fields near water . The wagtail is in most regions of Europe and Asia to find and even in the North American Alaska , there are populations . While the type in suitable climates zones sedentary bird is migrating the northern and eastern populations in winter to Africa and to southern Asia. The Americans hibernate further south on the Pacific.
Breeding biology
The singing is inconspicuous. The male, however, mates with a fluffed chest and trembling wings in front of the paler-colored female. The yellow wagtail is a ground-breeder, its nest is usually well hidden in a small depression between tufts of grass. Dry blades of grass and roots are used as nest material, the hemispherical nest hollow is finely smoothed and padded with animal hair. The breeding season is May to July. Four to six whitish eggs with very dense gray-brown spots can be found in the nest. There are one or two broods between May and August, which the female incubates alone for 11–12 days. The brood is often interrupted in search of food. Both parents feed the nestlings for 11–13 days. The young leave the nest long before they can fledge.
Subspecies
In addition to the native subspecies ( Motacilla flava flava ), four other subspecies are regularly observed in Germany. The males of the individual subspecies are drawn so differently (during the spring migration and breeding season) that they can be easily distinguished:
- The meadow wagtail Motacilla flava flava , which can be found in western Central Europe, has a blue-gray head with white stripes over the eyes.
- The Nordic yellow wagtail, also Thunberg sheep wagtail, M. f. thunbergi has a dark gray crown and black ear covers and is found in Scandinavia.
- The English yellow wagtail or yellow-headed yellow-headed wagtail M. f. flavissima has a predominantly yellow head and is native to Great Britain.
- The ash-headed yellow wagtail or ash-headed yellow wagtail M. f. cinereocapilla has a gray head and a white throat. It can be found in Italy.
- The masked wagtail or masked wagtail M. f. Feldegg attracts attention with its black head and breeds in the Balkans and Turkey.
Some authors consider these and other subspecies of the yellow wagtail as separate species (semi- or allospecies ). Accordingly, in the list of species of birds in Germany (2005), only the Central European wilts belong to the species Motacilla flava and there they bear the German name Wiesenschafstelze .
Web links
- Yellow wagtail at www.reuber-norwegen.de
- Motacilla flava in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 31 of 2009.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings for Motacilla flava in the Internet Bird Collection
- Entry at the Swiss Ornithological Institute
- Yellow wagtail feathers