Kelling Eastern Yellow Wagtail

Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Motacilla tsutchensis
Kelling Water Meadows, 6th-12 November 2020

Steven Stansfield

British Birds Rarities Committee

Rarity Form

Email to: [email protected]

Species: Eastern Yellow Wagtail

Date first seen: 6 October 2020 Date last seen: 12 November 2020

No. of Birds: 1 Age/Sex: 1st CY

County: Gwynedd Location: Bardsey Island

Please fill in your email address to ensure that you get an acknowledgement

Finder: Emma J Stansfield & SDS Email: [email protected]

Identifier (if different): SDS Email:

Submitter (if different): Email:

Other observers: SJM Gantlett, RG Millington, M Golley, A Davies, D. Mitchell and others

Any who disagrees with identification? None

Optical aids: 10x42 Leica Noctivids, 70x95 Swarovski ATX
Distance from bird: <20m at closest

Have you enclosed photographs? Yes embedded Was the bird videoed? no

If photos are available on public websites (BirdGuides & Surfbirds etc) then please give www address:
www.cleybirds.com
Have the photographs been published in magazines? If so, where:

Species present for comparison:

Which species were alongside the bird: Meadow Pipit, Pied wagtail

Observer(s) experience of the species: One male in Norfolk on Jan 2020, One Bardsey 3 October 2020

Observer(s) experience of similar species on the same day or previously: Several Citrine Wagtails,
including one 10 weeks earlier

Weather (general description): Calm sunney
Wind direction and Force: E 2
Light conditions (good, dull, etc & sun behind, side etc): variable
Visibility (distance): good
Rain, mist, etc:
Cloud cover: 3/8

Address of submitter: Bardsey Bird Observatory, Bardsey Island, Wales

Phone No: 07855264151
And finally, is the record 100% certain? yes

Kelling Water Meadows and surrounding area, 6th – 12th November 2020
Finder’s Account
Emma begins the story:
Having finished our 23rd year as Observatory Wardens on Bardsey Island in Wales, my
husband Steve and I headed to the mainland into yet another Covid lockdown in early
November. We made our way from Wales to our winter home in Norfolk in record time.
However, we are unable to get into our house, Owlwood Cottage, in Kelling as there were
still guests in there, so we had to stay in a friend’s unoccupied house overnight. The
following morning, 6th November, the cleaners were due in to Owlwood Cottage, so we
thought we would take the opportunity to walk out and enjoy the lovely weather and
wonderful area that we are lucky enough to live in. Also, I am sure it was in Steve’s mind
that it was still autumn in terms of migration and potential rarities, so we decided to take
an early morning stroll around Kelling Quags and over Muckleborough Hill. With hopes
of perhaps finding a Bluetail or Dusky Warbler, we made our way around, but saw little of
note and began heading along Meadow Lane back towards Kelling. I was as little ahead
of Steve and walked over to stop by the gate near the copse on Meadow Lane. As I
approached the gate, I flushed a grey and white wagtail from the grass just a metre or so
into the field on the other side of the gate. As it flew up, it emitted a longish very clear,
buzzy call which sounded like “fzzzzw” which immediately took my interest. I knew it was
not the call of a Pied or White Wagtail, so I followed it through my binoculars until it
landed towards the middle of the field between a few clumps of Juncus. I knew that it
was not a Pied Wagtail and the colouring of its back was not clean enough for a
White Wagtail, plus the call was wrong. At this point I have to confess to feeling just faintly
curious as, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t quite see a reason why this bird was any
different to the Eastern Yellow Wagtail that Steve had found on Bardsey in October…
though what were the chances? There was probably a simple explanation I was
overlooking.
At this point Steve was approaching, so I asked “A buzzy wagtail with no bib is something
interesting isnt it?” His response was immediate and insistent: “Where is it?”. I replied and
gestured: “It’s just there in front of us…” He took one quick look at it and said immediately
“Sh!t…It’s an Eastern Yellow Wag!”. He didn’t say anything else and the next thing I knew
he was typing away into his phone. “Is it one?…Really? Are you letting people know?” It
was all a bit surreal and completely unexpected, I don’t profess to know loads about birds,
though I have picked up a fair bit from life on Bardsey and on twitches with Steve, but as
it happens I did know a bit about Eastern Yellow Wagtails having so recently seen the one
on Bardsey, having heard lots of talk about it’s ‘buzzy’ call, and from asking questions at
the time about why it was not a Citrine Wagtail etc, and also having seen the one in west
Norfolk last winter on a couple of occasions.

Steve takes up the identification process
As soon as I saw the bird, I could see that it was strikingly monochrome and I was clearly
looking at a yellow wagtail type rather than a alba wagtail type… I checked the face pattern
and could immediately see that the supercilium stopped at the back of the ear-coverts
and did not wrap all the way around. The wing-bars were also fairly weak and not bold, so
I was happy that the bird was not a Citrine Wagtail. Having found both an Eastern Yellow
Wagtail and a Citrine Wagtail on Bardsey this autumn, I was pretty well armed with the

knowledge required to identify this bird and was immediately 100% convinced that this is
what I was watching, even though I knew that it was only the second ever to be identified
in Norfolk. I quickly put the news out via Twitter, tagging Steve Gantlett and Mark Golley
as well as RBA, and very soon other birders began to arrive, including Al Davies and
Dominic Mitchell, all of whom were happy with the identification as the bird remained in
the damp meadow. I did not have my camera with me and tried a couple of digibinned
photos (which were rubbish), but Dominic managed a few images that were ok. However,
I knew that the only way that we could get the bird accepted by the rarities committee
was if we obtained a sound recording of it. Unfortunately, the bird then flew off and
disappeared. Many of the later arriving birders were disappointed, but it did come back
again and, although often missing for long periods, it remained in the area for just over a
week (until 12th November), so most interested birders did catch up with it eventually.
Over the next few days, I made several trips to see the bird and did manage to get a
number of recordings of the bird’s calls, some of which were short and quite yellow
wagtail-like and some of which were long and buzzy. I analysed the sound recordings and
produced a number of sonograms which were absolutely spot on for nominate Eastern
Yellow Wagtail Motacilla tschutschensis.

Over the time the bird was present it became quite mobile, being reported from as far
west as the Iron Road at Salthouse, but regularly returned to the meadow at Kelling. On
the morning of 10th November, I was again at the Quags pool where I had six Bearded
Tits. On my way back along the side of Weybourne camp I heard the wagtail call and
approach from the west. It flew over the top of me and continued East and eventually
dropped beyond the eastern end of the Weybourne airstrip, well and truly into the NENBC
recording area. This becomes the first record of this newly split species for the club’s area
and only the second record for Norfolk.

A few weeks later an Eastern Yellow wagtail was discovered on my old stomping ground
at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory in Kent, and upon close inspection of the images of the
Kent and Kelling birds showed that they were one and the same individual, with a distinct
oval lemon-yellow patch on its upper left flank!

Description.

Typical Flava wagtail shape, longish body, with long tail and quite a horizontal stance.

The bird was generally a monochrome grey and white wagtail, superficially identical in shape
to Western Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava.

The underparts were almost all greyish white, with a slight lemony oval patch on the lower left
flank. There was a very slight yellowish/cream hue on the undertail coverts. The upperside was
generally a mat steely grey colour, sometimes looking slightly browner, with darker wing
feathers, two whitish wing bars. The head was strikingly marked with a buffish off white
supercilium dark lores and.a small amount of , pale inner ear covers and a dark bill.

Same image as above with background removed

Broken white eye-ring Supercilluim very fine Infront of
Brownish-grey ear coverts with eye, but flaring behind and not
slight white mark beneath eye wrapping around ear coverts –
Dark bill with pale occasionally looked long and thin
horn base but never wrapping round Ear
Coverts
Dark lores
Brownish-grey mantle, lesser
White throat, with coverts, scapulars, nape and
slight warm peachy crown
hint at times on Tertials long with narrow pale fringed – 2
‘shoulder’ smallest quite worn, with buffy fringes,
Flanks dusky, with oval lemon- longest fresher with white fringe.
yellow patch on left side only
Median coverts dark with pale saw tooth
shapes fringes

Greater coverts dark with pale
fringes and fairly broad white tips

forming a good wing-bar

Dark brown legs and feet. Very Pale vent, with Tail dark except two white
long looking hind claw slightest bit of yellow outer tail feathers – exact
visible at times pattern not noted

Behavior.
Typical flava type wagtail feeding in the ground, moving slowly around and then dashing to
catch insects. The bird did not really pump its tail much like other wagtails. The bird when
disturbed/spooked regularly flew into bushes and trees, sometimes quite high up.

Calls, sound recording analysis and comment from Magnus Robb
The bird was first found by Emma and set alarm bells ringing when she heard its quite
buzzy and distinctive call.
Over the seven day stay the bird was heard to call on a number of occasions, and, to my
ears at least, almost always sounded quite buzzy and short, generally not as drawn out as
Western Yellow Wagtails, but quite similar to Citrine Wagtail Motacilla citreola. There
were some longer less buzzy calls noted, but never as sweet as Western Yellow Wagtail.
The calls can be heard at https://tinyurl.com/Eastern-Yellow-Wagtail
I sent recordings of the calls to Magnus Robb for comment along with call of the Eastern
Yellow Wagtail which I found on Bardsey in October. Magnus agreed that both birds were
good for Eastern Yellow Wagtail and commented - As far as I can see the Kelling EYW is
perfect, and the Bardsey 5th October one looks good too.

The following spectrograms were created from the best calls recorded on 7 November
and one of a Western Yellow Wagtail from Bardsey.
Sonogram #1 – call from the Kelling Eastern Yellow Wagtail 7/11/2020
Sonogram #2 – call from a Bardsey Western Yellow Wagtail 5/10/2020

Comparison between Eastern and Western Yellow Wagtail from Kellin and Western from
Bardsey

Sonogram #1 Sonogram #2
Eastern Yellow wagtail Western Yellow Wagtail
Kelling 7/10/2020 Bardsey 5/10/2020

Foreleg shows two Descending Foreleg shows two Descending
strongly ascending hindleg strongly ascending hindleg
straight and parallel harmonic is curved and harmonic,
harmonics highly converging with no
modulated harmonics modulation





Photo Credits – Front cover and annotated image © Dominic Mitchell
All others – © Steve Gantlett

Spectrograms © Steve Stansfield – produced using Audacity Software

© Steven Stansfield - 2021