Wagtails showing signs of being in trouble in the UK

The diminutive yellow wagtail brightens up our rivers in summer

The latest Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) annual report, published by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), shows that all three UK breeding wagtail species are in long-term decline.

However, the reasons behind these trends are not clear. Our three wagtail species are: yellow wagtail, a farmland bird that migrates to sub-Saharan Africa, grey wagtail and pied wagtail, both of which remain largely in the UK over the winter.

Importantly, the races of both pied and yellow wagtails breeding in the UK nest almost nowhere else in the world. 

Yellow wagtails are in severe decline, as the latest BBS figures reveal a 43 per cent reduction between 1995 and 2012.

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Country Corner

It may be common but the Pied Wagtail is always worth watching.

Chasing insects across a lawn, or even in mid air, this acrobatic little bird is always active and eye catching.

Wagtails are often thought of as riverside birds.

In the case of the grey wagtail and many pied wagtails, that is undeniably true.

However, it is quite common to meet pied wagtails almost anywhere.

They are even happy to nest among industrial sites as work goes on around them. I have even known them to nest in the engines of vehicles.

Unusually for such a common bird, the pied wagtail is sought after by bird watchers for a particular reason.

This is because it is not so much a species as a race of the European white wagtail.

White wagtails can be seen here during migration, especially along the coast. Deciding if a bird is a white or pied wagtail is not always a straight forward task. Much of the confusion is caused by the great variety of plumage patterns between males, females and juveniles of both species.

Another seemingly strange aspect of pied wagtail life is the way these lone insect chasers will become very gregarious in winter, often forming night roosts of several thousand birds.

Like starlings, they often choose town centre locations for these communal roosts.

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