Eastern Yellow Wagtail.

Eastern Yellow Wagtail is a relatively recent split and there have been very few confirmed records in the UK. Shetland and the Scillies seem to be the favoured locations for this vagrant wagtail although there was one trapped and ringed at a sewage works in Colyton Devon in 2010. I was going to see it whilst staying with my parents in Somerset but the weather closed in and heavy snow meant I raced north to get home!

We missed one on Shetland by a day and another potential candidate was ruled out on the sonogram of its call - it also had a number of plumage anomalies and was eventually assigned as a far eastern race of one of the western races of Yellow Wagtail. Confused? We were.

When news broke of a possible being found at Cemlyn it ignited a spark of interest. Here was a bird that was only a few miles away on Anglesey. The next day it was re-found and heard to call with the call matching the call of Eastern Yellow Wagtail. A sound recording was needed to 100% confirm the identity but with Fred offering to pick me up we decided to go after lunch on Thursday 26th September.

High winds hampered us but we eventually got distant views of the bird as at flew up from a field and landed on a fence post. Most importantly Mark Sutton got a good sound recording that he sent off to Magnus Robb who confirmed it was a match for Eastern Yellow Wagtail.