{"id":38691,"date":"2013-04-22T12:58:12","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T11:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=38691"},"modified":"2019-12-22T22:44:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T09:44:58","slug":"a-smorgasbord-of-motacillas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/a-smorgasbord-of-motacillas\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sm\u00f6rg\u00e5sbord of Motacilla’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring has truly sprung in Kuwait and the the diversity and migrants heading north is amazing and always appreciated, more so because many birds are already sporting their breeding colours.<\/p>\n

The White Wagtails that were present all winter, have now given way to an array of Yellow Wagtails in a variety of sub-species. In Kuwait we have recorded 7 sub-species and it is interesting to note that the first to normally arrive is the Black-headed Wagtail (Motacilla f. feldegg)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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YWagtail_fel_7922<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

This is a 1st year Black-headed coming into adult plumage<\/p>\n

These are followed shortly after bySyke’s Wagtail(Motacilla f. beema)<\/p>\n

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Syke’s Wagtail<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Here a young Syke’s that will slowly have it’s green crown replaced by grey<\/p>\n

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Syke’s Wagtail<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Once these two are settled, a few other additions arrive. This year Yellow-headed Wagtail (Motacilla f. lutea), which looks very striking from close and afar<\/p>\n

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Yellow-headed Wagtail<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Was just ahead of the Grey-headed Wagtails (Motacilla f. thunbergi)<\/p>\n

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Grey-headed Wagtail<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Other sub-species that are recorded here are White-headed (Motacilla f. leucocephala) which was seen and photographed only yesterday by a fellow birder and then the more scarcer Eastern Black-headed Wagtail (Motacilla f. ‘melanogrisea’) and Blue-headed Wagtails (Motacilla flava flava).<\/p>\n

Of course we have a smattering of Citrine Wagtails and bigger numbers of the elegant Grey Wagtail in amongst the masses of Yellow Wagtails and they truly do add a splash of bright colour to the desert, parks, sidewalks and reserves in this land of sand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring has truly sprung in Kuwait and the the diversity and migrants heading north is amazing and always appreciated, more so because many birds are already sporting their breeding colours. The White Wagtails that were present all winter, have now given way to an array of Yellow Wagtails in a variety of sub-species. In Kuwait […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":2192946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/YWagtail_fel_7922.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[3436,3904,2251,1859,707],"class_list":["post-38691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-black-headed-wagtail","tag-kuwait","tag-motacilla-flava","tag-wagtails","tag-yellow-wagtail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}