Western Yellow Wagtail
Motacilla flava
Also known as: Yellow Wagtail, Cuereta Groga
Habitat
Ground
Diet
Invertebrate
Active Time
Diurnal
Size
18 g
About This Species
Western Yellow Wagtails walk briskly across short grass, farmland, and the edges of livestock, wagging their tails constantly while snapping up flies and other insects stirred up by grazing animals. They breed across much of Europe and western Asia in open meadows and wetland margins, then migrate to sub-Saharan Africa for the winter, so spring and early summer are the best times to see breeding-plumage males in Europe. Listen for their thin, buzzy call given in flight, often the first sign of a bird moving between fields.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- A distance of several metres from foraging birds is usually enough to avoid flushing them, and they often tolerate close approach by grazing livestock more readily than by people on foot.
- Wild bird protection law applies across most of its European breeding range, though the specifics and enforcement differ by country, so avoid assuming any single national rule covers the whole range.
- Ground nests in open fields are vulnerable to trampling and disturbance, so keep well clear of likely nesting areas in rough grassland during the breeding season.
Seasonal Activity
1,756,782 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Motacillidae
Traits
- Diet
- Invertebrate
- Foraging
- Ground
- Activity
- Diurnal
- Body mass
- 18 g
Photo
(c) Fabrizio Gottardi, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Fabrizio Gottardi
CC-BY-NC-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.