Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Eccles-on-Sea, Oct 13-23 2013, T.E. Allwood and A.J.Kane

On Oct 13 2013, I was birding part of my local patch at Eccles in East Norfolk during the afternoon as birds of an eastern origin were turning up (Red-flanked Bluetail a mile north, Dusky Warbler nearby and several Pallas's Warblers etc). The weather was pretty grim – windy and raining – and as I walked through a rough pasture I heard a call that I described as almost Richard's Pipit-like but crossed with a wagtail. In other words, it was sharp and quite explosive. The wind and rain were by now making listening for and seeing anything difficult and despite hearing it a few more times, the clarity of the sound was very poor. I called Andy Kane (AJK), describing the call and how it resembled a Richard's Pipit’s but didn’t seem right. I tramped around for a further hour before the torrential rain put an end to my search and I scooted off to Happisburgh to look at Jim’s Bluetail.

Conditions improved the next day and I received a call at work from AJK who had found bird. On flushing, he thought it was going to be a Citrine due to its greyness, two white wingbars clearly visible in flight and the sharp, almost buzzy call. However, on the deck views showed it definitely wasn't a Citrine due to the lack of white ear covert surround and the presence of a slight yellow wash on the vent / undertail areas etc). Over the next few days, a few locals saw the bird although access and observation were both problematic as the bird was in a sheep pasture behind electric fences and the landowner was only happy with two or three people in there.

It was clearly an interesting bird; the call was often sharp and pipit-like with a fizzy or buzzy quality (a sort of rolling "tsseeep!") and the appearance was highly unusual too - we've never seen anything like it aside from Phil Heath who saw a similar bird on Shetland many Octobers ago. Despite attempts to record the call a few times on my phone I never got anything satisfactory as it was always windy and despite making recordings they were all too noisy. We also made plans to trap the bird on the first available weekend but were again beaten by conditions and ultimately the departure of the bird on Oct 23.

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Description:

The bird was grey toned above (looking paler in bright light and darker in low light) and a pale white to slightly off-white below. The head pattern was striking, with a long and often broad-looking white supercilium, bordered above by a dark / black supra-loral stripe, extending along its length. The lores were very dark and the bill was dark, long, heavy and spiky, with a paler yellow-toned proximal area on the lower mandible. There was a small white subocular mark too.

The coverts were mostly juvenile and bright white, forming two clear wingbars, although on closer inspection a few feathers had been replaced. The mantle was also greyish (varying with the light) with no apparent brownish tones and perhaps a very slight suggestion of olive although only some observers could see this, it probably being down to lighting conditions. There was a slight pale-yellow wash to the undertail covert area. The tail was long with clear white outer feathers. The legs were very dark but the claws could not be seen in the long grass.

The call was varied: at times more strident but flava-like calls, but more often a buzzy and 'explosive' call was given, this was always the case when the bird was flushed.

I initially contacted Martin Garner who responded “maybe I am being too simple but from your photos and call description - is it not a straightforward ‘eastern flava?” and “Your bird in terms of plumage appears very similar to the Devon bird confirmed as ‘eastern’ on DNA - don’t you think?” Martin then wrote a piece on this bird on his Birding Frontiers website, but since his passing this can't be found anymore.

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Discussion:

Eastern Yellow Wagtail Motacilla tschutschensis was split from Western Yellow Wagtail M. flava in 2018. The taxonomy is still in a state of flux and as a result of suggested introgression between thunbergi and tschutschensis, the split has recently been doubted in this paper, so things may yet change further.

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The plumage of first-winter eastern yellow and northern yellow wagtails is still incompletely understood, but on average, yellow hues to the underparts decrease eastwards but, in all Arctic regions, it is possible to encounter individuals showing rather extensive yellow, as shown below. The amount of yellow probably covaries with brown tones in the upperparts. I would estimate the Eccles bird to be somewhere between 1 and 2.