White Wagtail (Motacilla alba)
About the White Wagtail
The white wagtail (Motacilla alba) is a small passerine bird in the family Motacillidae, which also includes pipits and longclaws. The species breeds in the Palearctic zone in most of Europe and Asia and parts of North Africa; it also has a toehold in western Alaska as a scarce breeder. It is resident in the mildest parts of its range, but otherwise migrates to Africa. In total, there are between 9 and 11 subspecies of M. alba; in Ireland and Great Britain, the black-backed subspecies known as the pied wagtail (M. a. yarrellii) predominates.
A real field recording of the White Wagtail. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
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Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
1 recording on this page · licensed CC BY-SA ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Austria, Belgium, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark and elsewhere · xeno-canto lists 1,945 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- African Pied WagtailMotacilla aguimprecording
- Cape WagtailMotacilla capensisprofile
- Citrine WagtailMotacilla citreolarecording
- Eastern Yellow WagtailMotacilla tschutschensisrecording
- Grey WagtailMotacilla cinerearecording
- Japanese WagtailMotacilla grandisprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.