Mountain wagtail, Motacilla clara, Sharpe, 1908, also known as the grey-backed wagtail or as the long-tailed wagtail, photographed at Wondo Genet, south-central Ethiopia (Africa). Image: Dan Logen, 31 ...

LIKE Thomas Hardy’s Darkling Thrush, a local song thrush has for days now been leading the way in summoning spring from: "The bleak twigs overhead / In a full- hearted evensong’’ with "His happy ...

Bill Oddie, the naturalist, calls it the Chiswick flyover, for reasons that will shortly become clear. Its other names include Polly washdish, Nanny washtail and washerwoman, from its habit of feeding ...

The sound of river water always draws me near, offering the possibility of interesting wildlife close by. Even small tributaries quietly tumbling along are home to enough aquatic invertebrates and ...

The pied wagtail is black, white, and grey. This is the common ‘willie wagtail’ found everywhere, in towns and the countryside. I regularly visit schools, and, for some reason I don’t understand, pied ...

"[T]he great God ... determined to render the world inhabitable. He, therefore, made a water-wagtail, and sent him down from heaven to produce the Earth. When [the bird] descended and saw what a ...

Wagtails historically prefer habitats near water such as reedbeds but are commonly found now in urban areas on farmland, parks and gardens and amongst buildings. Pied wagtails can be seen across the ...