SPOTTED!
Wildlife in (and around) Hailsham
by Tim Fox
Goodbye Hailsham south, and hello Hailsham north! Two weeks in and the garden bird list is at a healthy 19 species, including a very low flyover by a raven, coal tit on the feeders, and grey wagtail, the latter a species never recorded in my 27 years at previous address and quite a surprise. Sadly, as I was sitting on the patio as it landed at the bird bath, my gesticulation during a conference call spooked it, and it didn’t stay very long, but the flash of colour on its underneath as it flew off was confirmation of identification. Very similar in size to its cousins, the pied and the yellow wagtails (which all get their name because they have a very long tail relative to their body size, and they appear to wag it up and down), grey wagtail (scientific name motacilla cinerea, with cinerea being Latin’ish for ashy-grey) is mostly grey on its top-side, with black wing feathers and a white horizontal eye-stripe complete with a bib that is black (male) or white (female and juvenile). What sets it out from the pied wagtail (which confusingly is also mostly grey) is the yellow on the breast and belly. Yet it couldn’t be called yellow wagtail, because that name was already taken by the yellow wagtail, which is mostly yellow all over. Are you confused yet? My previous sightings of grey wagtail were restricted to one in a garden at Wannock, and a food-carrying adult to a next in the moat at Herstmonceux Castle, undoubtably on the way to its nest to feed hungry youngsters. The species are associated with water, usually much faster flowing than the almost stationary moat waters of the castle (and some people call the species “water wagtails”) but do watch out for them in and around town, maybe check out the path around the Common Pond when you are next there – that wagtail may not be the more numerous pied wagtail after all.
Pic: Credit Kit Day/Alamy
[First printed November 2021]
