What a morning! My major bogey bird bites the dust! Not only that, I found it
myself and it was a stonking adult male. I've had many a close shave with
citrine wagtail over the years but they've always eluded me both at home and
abroad. Not anymore, despite being a scarce bird in Cyprus I managed to pick
one out of a flock of 100 yellow wagtails at Mandria, and it obliged by
walking straight towards me until it was the closest bird. An absolutely
breathtaking bird!
It's hard to explain to a non-birder the excitement of seeing a bird such as
this after all these years of pain. I honestly could have cried when I saw it! This
will probably be the bird of the holiday for me, whatever else I might see.
The excitement of finding this was exhilarating! I make no apologies for
dedicating the whole post to photos and video of this bird.
Citrine wagtail looks like a mix of white wagtail and yellow wagtail, and it
behaviour seems more like white than yellow to me.
Citrine wagtail with a blue-headed wagtail.
My most infamous citrine wagtail dip was at Conwy RSPB in May a few years ago.
We arrived late afternoon to be told that the bird, which was in breeding
plumage like this bird today, had just walked behind a small muddy island with no
vegetation. Not too worry I was told, it's been doing that all day, it'll
reappear in about 10 minutes. Three hours later there was still no sign of it
and it was never seen again. I still believe it just dropped dead at the back
of the island, because nobody saw it fly off and it was just an island of mud.
This is just one of many tales I could tell of dipping this species.
Keep walking!
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