Yellow Wagtail: Characteristics and Habitat

Yellow wagtail (pictured right and below) belongs to the Wagtail family. This little bird weighs only 17 grams, and its body is no more than 17 cm long. Like all birds of this family, its tail is thin and long. The wagtail is characterized by shaking with the tail. The lower part of the bird is colored yellow, the back of it is olive-gray. On the dark-brown wings there are white stripes. The tail is black at the edges, too, with white stripes. A male has a gray or black hat on his head. The female also has it, but is brownish-gray in color and indistinctly expressed. The legs and beak of the bird are black. Young yellow wagtail of brownish-gray color.

In Russia, the bird lives almost everywhere. Exceptions are the Caucasus, tundra and southern parts of Sakhalin. Widely distributed yellow wagtail in northern Africa, in North America and Eurasia, except in the Far North, Southeast Asia and mountain systems. Mostly it's a migratory bird, but in some southern regions it prefers a sedentary lifestyle. It inhabits lowland areas of the forest-steppe and forest zone, in boggy meadows and in river valleys. Can settle on grassy marshes, overgrown with shrubs. In the taiga, it is almost not found, although it happens that it settles along the banks of rivers. Nesting density varies greatly. Somewhere there are individual nests, and somewhere dense settlements are formed.

In place of nesting, the yellow wagtail flies as soon as the snow comes down and a green grass appears. It all depends on latitude. If these are areas of the central Russia, then there it appears after the first half of April, and in Siberia - not earlier than the first half of May.

Yellow Wagtail prefers to settle near water. It can be wet meadows, shores of lakes and rivers. Loves the wagtail and swamps, overgrown with shrubs. Nesting site, she chooses a few days, carefully examining each corner. Nest the bird wagtail arranges on the ground, choosing a suitable pit, covered with a hummock, bush or grass. When a crow appears near a nest, dogs or humans show great anxiety. And if in the place of its nesting vacationers often appear, she will simply leave her place of refuge.

The nest is a shallow cup, which is built of small twigs, leaves, grass stalks and roots. The bottom is always lined with hair and wool. Masonry is not more than 5 eggs greenish or yellowish with a thick brown or gray crab. The incubation period lasts no more than 13 days, and only two weeks the chicks are in the nest. It happens that the yellow wagtail manages to make two clutches during the summer.

With their movements these birds strongly resemble white wagtails. But unlike them, they prey on their prey on the ground, not in the air. They quickly fly low over the ground and quickly move around it. Eat all kinds of small invertebrates. The diet includes bugs and weevils, spiders, leaf beetles and caterpillars, flies and mosquitoes, butterflies and ants.

Somewhere in the middle of summer, adult birds begin to roam with grown-up offspring in swampy places. And already from the middle of August and the second half of October they go to the places of their wintering. Migration occurs in South Asia, Africa, the islands of the Malay Archipelago or the Philippines.