Observations
Familiar birds in unfamiliar surroundings is the topic of Ruth Miller’s conversation this month
Iwas washing up at the kitchen sink and idly gazing out of the window. The view’s not bad from our lofty top floor position; we look out over Llandudno’s rooftops towards the sea and the limestone headland of the Little Orme, the smaller cousin of the Great Orme where we’ve been walking regularly through the COVID-19 lockdowns. While I lazily sponged the breakfast plates, a yellow streak caught my attention as it zoomed past the window. Blue Tits and Great Tits often dash across to a neighbour’s garden feeders, but this was different. The vivid lemony yellow really stood out on this grey morning, making the bird easier to follow with the naked eye.
Of course, binoculars are always close to hand and, dishcloth abandoned, I focused on the yellow blob. It had landed nearby and was happily pottering about in a puddle of rainwater that had collected on a flat roof, wagging its elongated tail as it went. Lemon-yellow, wagging tail, fast pattering steps; this could only be one bird: Grey Wagtail. The name Grey Wagtail really doesn’t do justice to this bird. Yes, it is grey on the back of the head and the mantle, but that’s overlooking the obvious, eye-catching yellow belly and vent. You can see why people sometimes mistakenly believe they have seen a Yellow Wagtail; but presumably that moniker was already taken when Motacilla cinerea was named.
All members of the wagtail family are active little birds that live up to their name, and as the Grey Wagtail’s tail is longer than that of its relatives, that wagging motion is really noticeable.
Splurge of lemon
Traditionally they’re a bird associated with rushing mountain streams in the north and west of Britain. Indeed, one of our regular local sites for Grey Wagtail is in the Conwy Valley, where a stream tumbles steeply down a rocky hillside, thundering over waterfalls and gurgling into whirlpools. Scanning the rocks at the water’s edge or the boulders projecting out of the white-water, your eye may be caught by that flicking tail or splurge of lemon as the Grey Wagtail bobs its way upstream and down, chasing after an unwary insect.
It’s a good spot for Dippers, too, another bird associated with tumbling water. But while my flat roof offered water, it wasn’t the fast-flowing current you think of with these birds. However, in winter they may frequent urban gardens providing water is
available nearby and my rainwater puddle fitted the bill perfectly well. The Grey Wagtail seemed content to paddle about for quite some time and I thoroughly enjoyed perfect binocular views before it flew away and out of sight over the rooftops.
It just goes to show how birds can sometimes turn up in the most surprising places. Some years ago, we were leading a group on a birdwatching tour in Thailand. We’d travelled to the far north of the country close to the Myanmar border, leaving the steamy lowlands behind and entering a world of steep mountains and rocky upwellings. It was bitterly cold here at dawn, with temperatures so low that visitors came here in their hundreds to experience the cold and to take selfies by an outdoors thermometer displaying 2°C (perhaps VisitWales is missing a trick here to boost Welsh tourism?!). However, once the sun rose above the mountain peaks, the warmth thawed out birds and birders alike as we soaked up the amazing wildlife here.
The names alone were mouthwatering: Mrs Gould’s Sunbird, Spectacled Barwing, Blue Whistling Thrush, Chestnut-tailed Minla, Silver-eared Laughingthrush to name just a few, and the birds themselves were just as tasty.
Our local guide took us to a military camp right on the border with Myanmar. We felt a little uneasy wielding our binoculars in such a sensitive area, but he reassured us that relations between the two countries were amicable, and that our optics would cause no problems. So, we followed him around the encampment, down into the trenches lined with sandbags, into the empty gun emplacements, where we peered through the gun slits, and right up to the barbed wire which marked the very edge of Thailand. What a bizarre birdwatching site.
The habitat in No Man’s Land looked the same as in Thailand, as did that of Myanmar just a few metres beyond. Scanning around to look for birds, our binoculars couldn’t help but drift over the military encampment on the Myanmar side of the border, and there was a border guard looking through his binoculars straight back at us! Oops, better concentrate on looking for birds.
Movement caught our eye as a small bird zipped from a bush in No Man’s Land through the barbed wire into Thailand. It landed out of sight at the base of the bush, but we waited patiently as the bird worked its way up through the vegetation and were rewarded with a full view of a Yellowstreaked Warbler. Not so colourful perhaps, but a new bird for our Life List, our Thailand List, and our No Man’s Land list!
Then we heard a familiar ‘ zit, zit’ call and spun around to see a slender, long-tailed bird flying over the barbed wire to land on a damp patch of earth between the borders.
Despite all the luscious new birds we’d been enjoying, it was lovely to see a familiar, if unexpected, face here in the mountainous border country; but sure enough, there was a Grey Wagtail wagging its tail, dashing after insects, and flaunting that wonderful lemony-yellow vent in just the same way as we’re used to seeing in North Wales.
So, it just goes to show, it doesn’t matter if you’re on a birdwatching trip in an exotic country or simply doing the housework at home, there are wonderful birds to be enjoyed everywhere and they can turn up in the most unexpected places.