Was the 1964 Minsmere Citrine Wagtail actually an even rarer Eastern Yellow Wagtail?

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1 Was the 1964 Minsmere Citrine Wagtail actually an even rarer Eastern Yellow Wagtail? In 1964, there was hardly a grapevine and so when R E Emmett and I met (by chance) Bert Axeall at the sluice at Minsmere in the morning of 1 November, we had no idea that he (and the scrapes) had been hosting a citrine wagtail for two weeks. The bird was flighty, staying dark and plumpish in escapes, but at hrs it settled for the marsh pool by Walton s Hide. As it was only my second and the first for a decade, I sketched it and that night produced a finished coloured drawing (copy enclosed). Throughout this process the bird stayed dark.. As the bird had been trapped and was written up in BB58: , 368, pl.49 (1965) I felt no contemporaneous qualms about the identification as Citrine. 1st for England. Over the ensuing five decades, however, my ID computer has increasingly sent out a too dark message when I looked again and again at the coloured drawing. The final Kibosh was the excellent photograph of a first-winter Eastern Yellow Wagtail motacitra flava (in 5 races) on Out Skerries in October 2011 published in the 2013 Rarities Report (BB 107: 639, pl. 328). As drawn/coloured by me, the Minsmere bird is clearly closer to the 2011 Eastern flava than to the 1954 citricola which I also drew. NB: the lack of a complete pale cheek surround an id crux?! So I suggest that BBRC puts my concern to the surviving observers and asks them to support a review. As Bert is long gone and I cannot find the full account, I can do nothing more with a certainly odd bird. but worry! D. I. M. Wallace

2 NOTES I am grateful to Professor Albert Messervy who drew my attention to these happenings and to Malcolm Parsons who took the photograph. B. W. Tucker in The Handbook says of this species, 'Bold in defence of nest and will sometimes stoop at and strike head of intruder with its sharp talons', and 'Danmarks Ugler', an 8-minute 16 mm. black-andwhite film produced by Statens Filmcentral of Copenhagen, includes some sequences of a Tawny Owl attacking a man, but there seem to be few well-documented cases in the literature and the regularity of the attacks upon Mr. Addicott over a period of three weeks is noteworthy. That the attacks of an aggressive Tawny Owl should not be treated lightly has long been evident from the unfortunate experience of Eric Hosking who lost his left eye to a nesting female which he was trying to photograph in Wales in Mr. Hosking has told me of several other incidents which have come to his notice as a result of this. Some years ago he met an eleven-year-old boy in Newcastle who had also lost an eye; the boy had picked up a young Tawny Owl from the ground with the intention of returning it to its nest and was attacked by one of the adults. During or just before the war, Dr. S. Long was mobbed by a Tawny Owl at Hickling, Norfolk; his mackintosh was slit along the back, but he sustained no real injury. The late Frances Pitt once had to ward off a Tawny Owl with a stick. However, it is important not to get the impression that the Tawny Owl is a savage animal which attacks human beings on the least provocation. The fact that instances of attacks are individually remembered and that plate 50 is unique among still photographs, so far as I am aware, serves to suggest that such aggressiveness is probably quite rare. This is borne out by the experience of H. N. Southern who has regularly studied a number of pairs of Tawny Owls in the Oxford area over a period of fifteen years and who has only once been attacked in all that time. JEFFERY BOSWALL Citrine Wagtail in Suffolk. At hours on 17th October 1964 a first-winter Citrine or Yellow-headed Wagtail Motacilla citreola was discovered by H.E.A., P.J.M., C. Cuthbert, D. Mower and P. Muller on the reserve of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at Minsmere, Suffolk. It stayed until 14th November and during those four weeks appeared to find an area of newly disturbed wet and dry earth much to its liking. In this open habitat it gave us ample opportunity to obtain detailed field-notes and it was watched by a large number of visitors. Much more than is usual in the feeding behaviour of Pied Wagtails M. alba or Yellow Wagtails M. flava in Britain, it frequently searched for food in quite tall and thick vegetation, being lost to view for long 345

3 BRITISH BIRDS periods in large areas of sea-aster and in the edges of reed beds. In wet reed stubble, it was not averse to walking in water up to the tibial feathers. On bare ground, it appeared to stand more upright and seemed longer-legged than a Yellow Wagtail. Whilst it nearly always fed alone, its active running after insects occasionally brought it close to Bearded Tits Panurus biarmicus, Rock and Water Pipits Anthus spinoletta and Pied Wagtails, but this evoked no aggression from it or the other species. From the back, especially when it could be directly compared with Pied Wagtails, the wholly pale grey upper-parts and black tail prominently edged with white were like those of a White Wagtail M. a. alba, as remarked by the observers of some of the Citrine Wagtails that have been recorded on Fair Isle. It was noticeably smaller, however, with the tail appearing even a little shorter than average for a Yellow Wagtail. The prominent white edges to the folded tertials reminded us of highly blancoed sergeant's chevrons and within this pattern the pale grey of the rump, paler than the mantle, could be seen. Outstanding in a side view were the long white supercilium and the double wing-bar formed by the broad white tips to the median and greater coverts. From the front, the wholly white under-parts were perhaps the most remarkable feature. A 'necklace' of pale ashgrey spots (see detailed description below) was not discernible in the field, but the lower edge of the very white throat was clear-cut against a faint cloudiness across the upper breast. In sunshine the pure grey above and all-white below made it appear a very clean-looking bird, but in dull light the mantle sometimes seemed to be brownish-grey and the white areas looked quite dirty. No trace of yellow, green or olive could be seen in the plumage in any light, but the crown often showed a faint brownish wash. We thought that it wagged its tail rather less frequently than a Yellow Wagtail does. Although mostly very active, running with remarkable speed and occasionally leaping into the air after flying insects, it was often extremely difficult to find against a background of lumpy earth and it was apt to 'freeze' when approached within 40 yards. When disturbed, it invariably called as it flew off, the note, uttered from one to four times, being a loud, shrill, almost bi-syllabic seeip, between the sharp flight-call of a Grey Wagtail M. cinerea and the more drawn-out call of a Yellow Wagtail, but not to be confused with either. When not occasioned by disturbance, the call was generally shorter but still loud and shrill and its distinctiveness often alone denoted the bird's presence. Reference to papers by Kenneth Williamson on the first two British examples of the Citrine or Yellow-headed Wagtail at Fair Isle in 1954 on tne (Brit Birds, 48: 26-29) anc^ plumage and structure of the species 344

4 NOTES by the same author and I. J. Ferguson-Lees (Brit. Birds, 48: ) indicated the identification of the Minsmere bird as M. citreola. Warnings by these authors of a similarity between some first-winter Citrine Wagtails and immature Eastern Blue-headed Wagtails (M. /. simillimd) prompted us to catch it and this was easily done in the late afternoon on 26th October when it made one of its occasional forays to a drain in a grazing field adjacent to the reserve. The following detailed description is based on the notes taken while it was in the hand: Upper-parts: no trace of green or yellow; forehead grey, with buff at immediate base of bill; crown, nape and mantle grey, the crown being a little darker and very slightly tinged brown; lower mantle and scapulars slightly washed brownish; rump pure grey, paler than mantle; upper tail-coverts blackish on distal two-thirds. Sides of bead: supercilium white, long, from near base of bill to near end of ear-coverts and broader behind eye; lores dark grey; ear-coverts grey (darker than crown),flecked white; thin half-circle of white below eye. Underpays: chin and throat purer white than rest of under-parts; upper breast white with very pale wash of greyish-cream in which there was a string of six faint grey. Tail and wings: tail black, central pair of feathers with brownish tinge, outer pair mostly white and penultimate pair with less white (the black on the inner webs in the last case extending to more than the basal half); axillaries end under wing-coverts whitish-grey with faint buff tinge below bend of 'wing; basal half of undersides of secondaries and 5th to 10th primaries white; primaries and secondaries otherwise blackish with very thin whitish tips; broad edges to tertials white on outermost and greyish-white on other two; greater coverts paler with very broad clear-white tips; median coverts similarly broadly tipped and with darker grey centres; lesser coverts grey with slightly paler edges and inner feathers very faintly tinged olive. Soft parts: legs black; bill blackish with grey at base of lower mandible; gape yellow; iris black-brown. Measurements: wing 80.5 mm.; tail 71 mm.; bill from skull 15.5 mm.; tarsus 26 mm.; hind claw 11 mm., with toe 19.5 mm. Wing formula: 2nd longest, 3rd 0.5 mm., 4th 1, 5th 5, 6th 11.5, 7th 16; emarginated on 3rd, 4th and 5th, emargination on 3rd beginning 18 mm. from tip. Weight: gm. at hours on 26th October. The bird in the hand was filmed in colour by H. Hurlock and also photographed in colour and black-and-white (see plate 49a). The flight-call was tape-recorded by John Kirby. This is the seventh British record, all the previous six having occurred at Fair Isle since H. E. AXELL, P. J. MAKEPEACE and H. and J. FFENNEH [We are taking this opportunity of publishing a photograph by Seppo and Timo Vuolanto of another first-winter Citrine Wagtail which was seen on Valassaaret Island, near Vaasa, Finland, from 8th to 10th September 1964 (see plate 49b). There is no previous record for Finland and this is probably the first time that the species has been satisfactorily photographed at large (as against in the hand), at least in Europe. EDS.] 345

5 PLATE 49. First-autumn Citrine Wagtails Motacilla citreola, Suffolk, October- November 1964 (above) and Finland, September 1964 (below). Note the grey upperparts and short white-edged black tail, pale supercilium, and broad-edged tertials and double wing-bar (pages ) {photos: H. E. Axell, and S. and T. Vuolanto)

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