In this section are copies of original works of art. All of them are dedicated to helping us live according to unconditional love and compassion, which is the foundation of our peaceful means of bringing true and lasting peace to all of God's creatures, whether they are human beings or other animals.
(Artwork - 247)
White Wagtail (Motacilla alba)
The White Wagtail (Motacilla alba) has a massive range across the Palearctic from the Atlantic coast of western Europe all the way to the Pacific coast of Asia and a small part of western Alaska (where scarce, and eagerly sought by North American birders) and south as far as northwest Africa, the Middle East, and south-central Asia, with winter migrants going south as far as the tropics and subtropics of Africa and Asia. They occur both in open wilderness areas, and in urban streets and parks, making them one of the most familiar bird species wherever they normally occur.
And what bird-nerds like myself find interesting is that their sharply defined patterns of grey, white, and black vary from region to region, allowing taxonomists to classify them into a series of well-defined subspecies – geographic variants – each with a slightly different arrangement of black, white, and grey – the visual equivalent, in a sense, of a musical composer’s variation on a theme, such as Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations, or a painter’s different versions of the same subject, such as Claude Monet’s differing versions of haystacks or water lilies. By definition, subspecies interbreed, producing viable young (meaning they can also reproduce) wherever respective ranges intersect. Until, quite recently, sophisticated DNA and other highly technical analysis made it so much more possible to determine the relationship of a given individual, everyone from amateur birders to museum taxonomists with their calipers and millimeter by millimeter examination of a bird’s black, white, and grey pattern had fun assigning any given individual White Wagtail (sometimes called a Pied Wagtail) to any given subspecies, or intergrade between two subspecies.
And those geographically determined variations allow us to make educated guesses as to the origin of individual White Wagtails when they migrate away from their breeding range or show up as “accidentals” far from home. The first image shows my painting of one such bird that occurred here in Ontario in April, 2023. From the examination of photographs, it was possible to determine that the bird was from the far northwest, Siberia, perhaps, or from the small number nesting in Alaska, all assigned to the subspecies, Motacilla alba ocularis. But Ontario’s first record of a White Wagtail was in April, 2017, and was identified as M. a. yarrellii. That subspecies is found in the U.K. I have painted both, in oils, on 12 by 9 inch panels. The first attachment shows M. a. ocularis, the second M. a. yarellii. That means the first bird arrived in Ontario from the east, across the Atlantic, while the second arrived from the northwest, crossing a major part of Canada, and possibly even the Bering Strait or a wider part of the Pacific Ocean.
Pied Wagtail
There is still some controversy as to the exact number of White Wagtail subspecies, usually pegged at anywhere from 9 to 11.
Trivia notes: this is the national bird of Lativia, an excellent choice. The species is monogamous. Males start nest building but females join in, although in one subspecies, M. a. personata, only the female alone does all the work. The nest is usually in a crevice on or near the ground, but they sometimes build it within the structure of an eagle’s nest or beaver’s dam, or in an opening building, fence, or other human-made structure. Both parents incubate the egg clutches, which vary from about four to six in number. Both parents attend feeding duties until well after the babies have left the nest.
And as you may know or certainly guessed, they often wag their tails up and down, hence their name. They are dainty, delicate birds that I never tire of watching, but of course I only get to see when overseas. I remember the trouble I had staying focused on a meeting in England, once, because the wide windows of the meeting room provided a view of a pair of White Wagtails on a roof nearby. To me they were far, far more interesting and entertaining than the discussion I was there to attend.
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Copyright © Barry Kent MacKay
Barry describes himself as a Canadian artist/writer/naturalist.
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