GREY WAGTAIL

Walking home from work yesterday (as in the changed time and date of this post), I noted two things of interest. Firstly, a lovely "Grey Wagtail" underneath Reading Bridge.
Those of you who read my first attempt at blogging might remember a post on a storm-blown grey wagtail in our backyard.
I've always had a soft spot for Wagtails. They seem to have very comical faces and manners, not appearing to be shy of humans at all. You will often see the most common of our Wagtails, the Pied Wagtail in supermarket car-parks for example, running around catching the insects fly flushing them into the air by "wagging" their tails, (hence their name). The third British Wagtail is the Yellow Wagtail - a magnificently coloured wagtail - pretty well always found by fast-moving streams. The Grey Wagtail (pictured above) gets a bit of a raw-deal with its name. Grey above, it has a wonderful yellow underside, which you'll certainly notice if it flies above you in the typical Wagtail bouncing flight.
The Yellow Wagtail is a common summer visitor to the UK, whereas the (slightly less common) Grey Wagtail moves south in the UK to overwinter, and moves north in the UK to breed.

One final note - if you see a Grey Wagtail (grey above/yellow below) between march and october, look at its throat. If it has a black throat (like the one in the photo above), its a MALE. The female doesn't exhibit this black throat patch. Both sexes have a pale throat in the winter.