St.Cross, Winchester, UK. June 18. 2018. This post is prompted by another random reach into my photo archive.
I paused to watch a pair of Grey Wagtails early one morning on my way back for breakfast at my cousin’s lovely home in an antique corner of Winchester. I use the adjective antique in an attempt to paint her part of the city as only quite old, unlike other neighbourhoods which are anywhere from ancient to unfathomably historic. Or perhaps to put it more simply her house is Victorian, while other parts of the city are Medieval, Saxon and Roman in that reverse order.
I noticed the wagtails beside a small stream that emerged from under an old stone bridge, they were very busy finding and delivering insect food to a hungry brood nearby. Other passers-by either didn’t see them, had grown tired of them or needed to get to work. It’s the female in the photo above and the male here.
Much as I like these Grey wagtails, they are vividly outshone by Citrine Wagtails, their Central Asian cousins. I met Citrine Wagtails in Kyrgyzstan just a month later, this is one below, also from my photo archive.
