Southern flava

Just for a change, I headed over to the patch this evening. I met John Ellis coming off site, who informed me that Mark Dawson was also around, and that Mons Pool was quiet; hopes of finding a decent wader evaporated, so I checked the bare potato fields south of Ferry Lane Lake, as I have been doing for the last couple of weeks.

There were around 16 Yellow Wags present, one of which had a blue head. I gave it a quick once over, and whilst it superficially looked like a Blue-headed Wagtail, thoughts of Channel Wagtail quickly came to mind. I called Mark, who soon joined me, and we spent the next 45 minutes watching the bird. Lighting conditions were difficult, with a low evening sun, and it was difficult to assess the head colour and pattern, especially as the bird would hardly sit still!

Overall, the head looked relatively dark, although this changed depending on which way the bird was facing and how far away it was... however, it certainly wasn't the powder blue of a 'classic' Channel Wag. But other features didn't sit quite right for a pure Blue-head either; the supercilium struck me as being quite broad and 'flaring', the white subocular patch was quite large, and there was quite a lot of white on the chin and upper throat. So probably a Channel - but nice to have a bird of southern origins on the patch nonetheless.