Birdwatching - 3166🐦

🦉 The white wagtail (Motacilla alba)

• Motacilla lat .: mōto, mōtare move continuously, -cilla tail (cilla like a tail - only in ornithology, erroneous established name)
• alba (lat.) white

Despite the love of birds of this family for open spaces and proximity to water, white wagtails are mostly synanthropes, that is, city dwellers. They live under the roofs of houses, buildings, structures, cracks in walls, old hollows, and other depressions.

This bird feeds on insects, which it catches on the ground or surface, grass, or sometimes in flight. I once conducted an experiment, turned on slow motion on my phone and filmed a wagtail running on the asphalt. And only when I slowed down I discovered that it was catching some tiny bugs that we cannot see with our eyes.