Find your own Wagtails
Yellow Wagtail is still a frequent migrant and breeder in Britain, despite a rapid decline in numbers over the last few decades. The British subspecies flavissima shows a propensity for coastal marshes and potato fields, and nests mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia, the Midlands and the North-West. Relict populations are still present around the Severn Estuary, the Lleyn Peninsula, Cumbria and south-east Scotland. The species is largely absent from the West Country, Wales and elsewhere in Scotland, and occurs only as a scarce migrant on the east coast of Ireland. Regarding the Continental subspecies, Blue-headed Wagtail is by far the most frequent, and is generally found among flocks of migrating Yellow Wagtails, though it can sometimes occur in its own small groups, too. The south and east coasts are by far the most likely places to log Blue-headed, particularly at well-known migration hotspots such as the bird observatories. Check ploughed fields, saltmarshes, horse paddocks, short grazed grassland and other areas where the soil is rich enough to hold good numbers of invertebrates or the turf short enough to support farm animals which disturb and attract the favoured insect food. However, the subspecies has been recorded almost anywhere Yellow Wagtails occur, and also makes use of the minor inland flyways such as the various river valleys, as well as among the sparser Yellow Wagtail occurrences as it progresses north on a fairly broad front. Blue-headed also breeds on occasion within reach of the east coast, sometimes in pure pairs, but other times introgressing with flavissima to produce ‘Channel Wagtails’, which are generally seen in the overlap zones on either side of the English Channel. While Grey-headed Wagtail is a scarce but regular late spring migrant on the Northern Isles and less predictably along the east coast south to East Anglia, the chances of finding Ashy-headed and Iberian Wagtails are minimal as the tiny number (or even total lack) of records attest. Still, it’s always worth checking mixed flocks of Yellow and/or Blue-headed Wagtails at coastal migration hot-spots. A spring male at these locations is by far the best bet for finding your own bird.