The Willie Wagtail, Rhipidura leucophrys, lives all over mainland Australia and is hard to miss with its long fanned tail that it swings from side to side or up and down while foraging on the ground.
Why do wagtails wag their tails?
Many Aboriginal people consider the Willy Wagtail (fondly called Jitta Jitta) a gossip-monger and bringer of bad news, especially in Victoria. The distinctive white eyebrow of the male wagtail is not just a fashion statement - it helps him attract a mate. It is thought that the tail wagging may have a social function with individuals signalling to potential mates about the quality of their condition. The poet John Clare caught the bird’s gait well: Little trotty wagtail…
It may seem strange to us but their insect prey is easier to find on our roofs and …
As well as the flightless arthropods which may or may not respond to these foraging tactics, Wagtails also eat flying insects but insect activity, particularly flight, varies with both time of day (temperature) and light intensity. Grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) Grey wagtails are resident all year in most parts of the UK and Ireland, winter visitors in others (from coastal areas of Yorkshire, down through East Anglia and much of Kent), and summer-only visitors in northern parts of the UK, such …
This belief has filtered into Australian myth; those … For an in-depth study on the wagging tail of the wagtail, see here . All three of Britain’s breeding wagtails – the pied, grey and yellow – are characterised by their wagging tails, which are frequently ‘pumped’ up and down. The question is: why do they wag their tails? One theory is that the wagging tail helps to flush out insects. A small, black-and-white and charismatic bird, the Australian willie wagtail was named as such because of its famous (and seemingly compulsive) side-to-side tail-wagging. Wiki User 2009-05-23 17:11:49. The pied wagtail is a delightful small, long-tailed and rather sprightly black and white bird. It frequently calls when in its undulating flight and often gathers at dusk to form large roosts in city centres.
The specific epithet alba is Latin for "white". The answer is, as always, that those who wagged their tails had more offspring who had more offspring until all the wagtails wagged their tails.
Wagging isn’t just unique to the pied wagtail – there are several species that do it. The Latin genus name originally meant "little mover", but certain medieval writers thought it meant "wag-tail", giving rise to a new Latin word cilla for "tail".
When not standing and frantically wagging its tail up and down it can be seen dashing about over lawns or car parks in search of food.
Rival males show aggression by expanding their eyebrows during a territorial dispute. Wagtails take ticks from the skin of grazing animals such as cattle and pigs, and have even been seen doing this with lions in a zoo.
But why do wagtails wag their tails in their first place? The origin of the washer names is a mystery, but it may be because women once washed clothes, as well as pot and pans, by a stream or village pump, the sort of place that pied wagtails also frequent.
And this seems to be the result as Wagtails peck at a relatively constant rate throughout the day. The wagtail is a genus, Motacilla, of passerine birds in the family Motacillidae.The forest wagtail belongs to the monotypic genus Dendronanthus which is closely related to Motacilla and sometimes included herein. Why does the willie wagtail wag its tail? The question is: why do they wag their tails? As wagtails wag their tails when preening, this would not seem like a likely function.
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