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Western Yellow Wagtail / Schafstelze

Motacilla flava

Photo by Ursula Fricke
Published on Project Noah
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51.7493, 7.94839

Field Notes

Notes:

Tentively identified as Motacilla f. flava, confirmation is greatly appreciated.

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (4)

Thanks Martin. I have bought the Svensson in the meantime and it's become my favourite bird guide in a matter of days.
17 years ago my daughter gave me "Birds of Europe" by Lars Jonsson. It includes most of the sub-species variations found in Europe with complete drawings and has proved invaluable over the years. Apparently it has recently been revised and the paperback version is still relatively cheap. AFAIK it is only available in Swedish and English.
Thank you, Malcolm. My problem with genus and species in this case was that the Motacilla flava pictured in my field guide looks different enough to doubt my ID, especially missing the white supercilium. And thanks for the additional info, I would have written about the white stripe above the eyes. ;)
Motacilla flava flava is correct, although only Genus + species is essential for Project Noah. Sub-species is of course welcome where known. The similar beema sub-species is generally only found much further east towards the steppes of central Asia. The iberiae always has a clearly marked white throat and probably never goes that far north while thunbergi would only be seen as a migrant and has no white supercilium. We occasionally see feldegg here but they have an all-black head with yellow throat.

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