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| White Wagtail Motacilla alba ocularis
UPDATE: I'm now relabelling it as Motacilla alba 'lugens' not "ocularis" as originally posted thanks to Ayuwat's comment below - see comments and Thank you to Ayuwat.
male Niigata Prefectural License Center, Niigata, Japan October 27, 2013 |
I posted a Willie Wagtail which is a fantail from Australia a couple of weeks ago. This time I'm posting a common sight in Niigata which I believe is a real wagtail species from the northern hemisphere. This guy hanged-out with me while waiting at the Niigata Prefectural License Center.
I didn't realise until I opened my guides that there are numerous variations so I hope I have chosen the correct one. Any opinions are most welcome. Many thanks.
7 comments:
Nice photos Russell. I think this is the common race found in Japan, it was split from and then lumped back with White Wagtail...................
Really good shots Russell. I seem to see White Wagtails wherever I go in the world and they clearly have lots of sub-species and variations. This one seems to have a very strong supercilium and lots of white in the primaries.
a very handsome bird
Still plenty of breeding plumage on this "ocularis". They have usually lost a lot of that plumage by the time they arrive to winter here in Hong Kong. Anyway, great birds.
Hello Russell!
Since I posted also a White wagtail on my blog recently and discovered how many different varieties there were around the word, I am really glad to get an idea of what 'yours' look like!
Well they have much more black on the head and I find them much more handsome!!
Lovely pics!
Enjoy your WE!
Nice photos as usual, Russell!
But I think the subspecies mostly found in Japan is 'lugens' not 'ocularis' which also occurs but as a scarce visitor. The two are very similar but different in the amount of white on wings (more in 'lugens'), black on throat (reaches chin in breeding 'ocularis') and colour of back (always pure pale grey in 'ocularis' and black in breeding 'lugens'). From these photos, you can see that the bird still has some black feathers on the back indicating that it's actually 'lugens' :-)
Thanks for your inspiring insight, Ayuwat. I will fix my label thanks to you. Thank you for visiting and for your comments everyone.
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