Grey Wagtail
Motacilla cinerea
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Distribution Britain 1,979 (+7.3%) Ireland 816 (-8.6%)
Numbers breeding: Britain 34,000 Ireland 22,000 European status: 720,000 (8% in Britain and Ireland =3) British population trend: declining in some areas (-34% CBC){-39%} How likely are you to record it? 271 squares (6.0%) Ranked 77 [41=] |
These elegant and attractive birds invariably nest by swift running water and, in lowland areas, are almost always found by sluices, weirs, canal locks, etc. They used to breed only in Scotland, northern England and Ireland but by 1900 had colonised Wales and South-west England and had started to spread into the Midlands and along the South Coast to Kent to exploit the available man-made sites. This expansion gradually continued to Essex and Leicestershire in 1951 for instance. Between the two Breeding Atlases many new sites in eastern Britain were colonised. The birds mostly leave their breeding area for the winter and are severely affected by cold winters when the population is often halved. Such setbacks are soon recovered after a few mild winters. The BTO medium alert is because of the 34% decline in population recorded on both the CBC and WBS but it might have been high at the beginning of the period — following a succession of mild winters. Further increases in lowland areas are to be expected.
From
The
State of the Nations Birds
Copyright © 2000 by Chris Mead