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White Wagtail Motacilla alba, a vagrant to Barbados, Trinidad and French Guiana

2010; British Ornithologists' Club; Volume: 130; Linguagem: Inglês

2513-9894

Johan Ingels, Olivier Claessens, Thomas Luglia, Patrick Ingremeau, Martyn Kenefick,

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

White Wagtail Motacilla alba is mainly an Old World species, widely distributed as a breeder from south-east Greenland over the entire Palearctic and south-east Asia to northwest Alaska. In winter its range also extends south to central Africa and southern Asia (Alstrom & Mild 2003). In North America White Wagtail is represented by two subspecies, M. a. ocularis and M. a. lugens (Alstrom & Mild 2003, Tyler 2004). M. a. ocularis breeds in westernmost Alaska and has wandered south to California and Baja California in Mexico, whilst M. a. lugens occasionally breeds in coastal Alaska and is a rare vagrant south to western North America. Both subspecies have also been recorded in south-east North America, in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana (Howell & Webb 1995, AOU 1998, Buckley et al. 2009). Palearctic M. a. alba is also a rare vagrant to Florida (March), Quebec (May) and North Carolina (October) (Buckley et al. 2009). In early 1987, M. a. alba was recorded on Barbados, and at the end of 1987 probably also in Trinidad (ffrench 1991, Kenefick et al. 2007, Buckley et al. 2009, Oatman in prep.). We report here one observation substantiated with photographs of a White Wagtail of the subspecies alba, and a brief view of another White Wagtail, from French Guiana, the first for this species on the South American continent. We also discuss a recent White Wagtail on Trinidad, together with an overview of earlier records on Barbados and on Trinidad.