Yellow Wagtail (pictured right and below) belongs to the family motacillidae.This little bird weighs 17 grams, and her body is no longer than 17 cm. Like all birds of the family, her tail long and thin.For wagtail characteristic shaking tail.The lower part from birds painted in yellow, back in her olive-gray.On a dark brown wings have white streaks.The tail is black on the edges, too, with white stripes.The male on the head can clearly see the gray or black hat.For females, it is also there, but the brownish-gray in color and clearly marked.The legs and beak bird black.Young yellow wagtail brownish-gray.
In Russia bird inhabits almost everywhere.The exception is the Caucasus, tundra and southern Sakhalin.Widespread yellow wagtail in the northern part of Africa, North America and Eurasia, except for the Far North, South-East Asia and the mountain ranges.Basically it is a migratory bird, but in some southern areas she prefers sedentary.It lives in the lowland areas of the forest-steppe and forest areas, boggy meadows and river valleys.It may settle on the grassy marshes overgrown with bushes.In the taiga, it almost can not be found, although it happens that settles on the river banks.The density of nesting varies greatly.Somewhere there are single slot, but somewhere formed dense settlements.
In place of nesting yellow wagtail arrives as soon as the snow melts and the grass will be green.It all depends on the latitude.If these are areas of central Russia, it appears there after the first half of April, and in Siberia - not before the first half of May.
Yellow Wagtail prefers to live near water.It may be wet meadows, lakeshores and riverbanks.He loves wagtail and marsh overgrown with bushes.Nesting place she chooses a few days, carefully examining every corner.Wagtail nest bird settles on the ground, choosing a suitable hole, veiled hillock, bush or grass.When you are near the nest of crows, dogs or people showing great concern.And if in her nesting spot will often appear vacationers, it simply leaves the home place.
nest is a shallow cup, which is constructed of small branches, leaves, grass stems and roots.The bottom is always lined with hair and fur.Masonry is not more than 5 eggs a greenish or yellowish color with a thick brown or gray specks.The incubation period lasts no more than 13 days, and only two weeks the chicks are in the nest.It happens that the yellow wagtail have time over the summer to make two clutches.
their movements, these birds are strongly reminiscent of White Wagtails.But unlike them prefer to look for their prey on the ground rather than in the air.They quickly fly low to the ground and quickly move on it.They eat all kinds of small invertebrates.The diet consists of bugs and weevils, spiders, caterpillars and leaf beetles, flies and mosquitoes, moths and ants.
Somewhere in the middle of summer, adult birds begin to migrate to the grown offspring in marshy places.And since mid-August and the second half of October, they are sent to their places of hibernation.The migration takes place in South Asia, Africa and the islands of the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines.
