First record of Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla citreola) for British Columbia and Canada.
By Rick Toochin.
Read the full article with photos/figures here
Introduction and Distribution
The Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla citreola) is a Eurasian passerine found as a breeding species from Finland, with scattered locations in Poland, east through northern Russia, with small populations breeding in Turkey and western Georgia, east with scattered breeding areas in eastern Iran, through Afghanistan, some regions of Pakistan with much of the Himalayas east into central China, Mongolia to Transbaikalia in eastern Russia (Cramp 1988, Brazil 2009, Mullarney et al. 2009, Clements et al. 2012). Citrine Wagtails are migratory birds that mainly winter in southern Asia from southern China westward through the northern part of Vietnam, northern Laos, through northern and central Thailand, Burma, through northern India to Pakistan with smaller numbers known to winter in Iran (Cramp 1988, Alstrom et al. 2003). There are two distinct subspecies of Citrine Wagtail. The first subspecies is the dark-backed form (M. c. calcarata) which is a short distance migrant that is found breeding from southern China, west through the Himalayas to Iran (Alstrom et al. 2003, Clements et al. 2012). The second subspecies is the gray-backed (M. c. citreola) which is a more widespread form and is a long distance migrant that is found in north east Russia through to Siberia, Mongolia and Manchuria with birds wintering in India (Alstrom et al. 2003, Clements et al. 2012). The Citrine Wagtail is a rare but increasingly regular vagrant in parts of Eastern Europe and is a rare but regular vagrant to Great Britain in migration (Lewington et al. 1992, Alstrom et al. 2003). This species is a fall vagrant to Iceland with 10 accepted records to 2006 (Pétursson and Kolbeinsson 2013). There is one accepted fall record for the Azores (Rodebrand 2013). Almost all records in Western Europe are of the subspecies (M. c. citreola). Citrine Wagtails are scarce migrants along the Korean Peninsula, throughout Japan and Taiwan (Brazil 2009). There are no records for Alaska (West 2008). There was only one previous North American observation prior to the recent British Columbia record, of a bird found on January 31-February 1, 1992, at the Starkville Sewage Ponds in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi (DeBenedictis et al. 1994).
