Figure 387. The Eastern Yellow Wagtail is purely an early fall vagrant to California, and 8 of 12 records involve birds seen on a single day. The dates of occurrence range between 27 August and 21 September.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EASTERN YELLOW WAGTAIL Motacilla tschutschensis Gmelin, 1789

Accepted: 12 (63%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 7	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 3	Color image: page H-25

Despite unresolved taxonomic issues, the AOU Check-list Committee recently treated the Eastern Yellow Wagtail (M. tschutschensis) as a species distinct from the remainder of the Yellow Wagtail (M. flava) complex and tentatively assigned all North American records to M. tschutschensis (Banks et al. 2004). Subspecies simillima, which breeds in eastern Siberia and has been recorded as a vagrant on islands of western Alaska (Gibson and Kessel 1997), was placed within M. tschutschensis (note that Alström and Mild 2003 synonymized simillima with tschutschensis). No other taxa in the group have been recorded in North America. Accordingly, California’s records of the Yellow Wagtail (sensu lato) are assumed to be of M. tschutschensis even though other taxa in the complex have not been eliminated. Non-adults, which account for most California records, generally cannot be identified to species in the field given current understanding of the distinguishing characters.

The Eastern Yellow Wagtail breeds from eastern Kazakhstan and northeastern Mongolia north and east across most of Russia, including Siberia and northern Kamchatka. The New World breeding range includes western and northern Alaska, the northern Yukon, and possibly the extreme northwestern Northwest Territories. The species winters in Southeast Asia, eastern China, the Philippines, the East Indies, and Australia. A vagrant from Alabama (NAB 58:92) is of uncertain attribution (M. tschutschensis or M. flava, sensu stricto). Eastern Yellow Wagtails have been recorded in the West south of Alaska fewer than two dozen times, almost always near the coast (Heindel 1999). British Columbia claims five records of first-fall birds between 1 September and 18 October, plus a spring adult at Tofino on 23 April 2004 (NAB 58:422); Washington’s only record is of a brightly colored adult on 20 July 1992 at Ocean Shores; Oregon’s record is from Siltcoos River on 31 August 1997; a very unusual inland record comes from Boulder City, Nevada, on 11 September 1994 (Cressman et al. 1998); and on 22 September 1997 a bird was audio-recorded on the San Quintín Plain in Baja California.

California’s first Eastern Yellow Wagtail was found on 17 September 1978 at Abbotts Lagoon, Marin County. Eleven more have followed, none before 27 August or after 21 September (Figure 387). Only four birds have remained longer than a single day, and none has remained longer than three days. The species’ geographic pattern is nearly as consistent as its temporal one: all records are from the coast, usually at lagoons or estuaries, and 9 of the 12 are from Monterey County northward. See also Appendix H.

As a final caveat, in reviewing some records, the CBRC did not consider potential confusion with the Citrine Wagtail (M. citreola). Some individuals of this species closely resemble the Eastern Yellow Wagtail in formative plumage, and the calls may be indistinguishable (Leader 1996, Heindel 1999, Alström and Mild 2003). Although the Citrine Wagtail has not been recorded in western North America, it occurs in eastern Asia, and one was photographed near Starkville, Mississippi, 31 January–1 February 1992 (DeBenedictis 1995).