Letter: Can You Help Me Name That Bird?

Published on: 28 May, 2019
Updated on: 28 May, 2019

From Robert Shatwell

I frequently receive your excellent articles and whilst I live in Woking, Guildford is not so far away. I particularly like the bird watcher articles as I love birdwatching, although I am not a “twitcher”.

Yesterday [May 24, 2019] I was out on Broadmeads Meadow, in the Guildford Borough area at Send and saw a bird I do not recognise, nor can find in any of my bird books.

It is not a particularly good picture, attached, but wondered if your birding expert could help. It appeared to be like a robin in size etc but as can be seen, it has yellow in its tail.

Any help you can give will be very much appreciated.

Dragon birdwatcher Malcolm Fincham responds:

Thank you for your enquiry.

I am always happy to be of help where I can as the aim of my reports have always been to inspire people to be aware of the nature that surrounds us, even in urban areas, rather than the worrying trend these days of observing nothing other than the screen on a mobile phone.

What you saw, while on your walk, was most certainly a grey wagtail.

A grey wagtail. Photo – Malcolm Fincham

These are quite a common bird, locally, that can be seen, by the observant, along our Surrey waterways.

Quite striking in their bright colours. Often, they can be mistaken for a yellow wagtail, due to the yellow feathers in their plumage.

A grey wagtail at Riverside Nature Reserve showing off both its yellow plumage and its flycatching ability. Photo – Malcolm Fincham

Unlike the yellow wagtail (a summer visiting bird from Africa), the grey wagtail is a resident bird.

Preferring to live by rivers, grey wagtails can often be seen, at this time of the year flycatching insects over the ponds and rivers, sometimes returning to feed them to their young.