. Birds through the year . years the whole raceof London house-pigeons would become pure blue rocks wagtails are far less numerous than black-headedgulls, but equally regular as winter visitors. Wagtailsare often badly named; the name of yellow wagtail isreserved for a summer migrant, and the name of greywagtail is given to a bird in which yellow is even moreconspicuous, while the common grey member of the familyis called the pied wagtail. Pied wagtails may be seen nowand then in the parks or along the river at most times of () 1 42 330 AUTUMN AND WINTER year, but especially at
. Birds through the year . years the whole raceof London house-pigeons would become pure blue rocks wagtails are far less numerous than black-headedgulls, but equally regular as winter visitors. Wagtailsare often badly named; the name of yellow wagtail isreserved for a summer migrant, and the name of greywagtail is given to a bird in which yellow is even moreconspicuous, while the common grey member of the familyis called the pied wagtail. Pied wagtails may be seen nowand then in the parks or along the river at most times of () 1 42 330 AUTUMN AND WINTER year, but especially at the two migration times, when theysometimes appear in little flocks. Grey wagtails, with theirbeautiful glint of sulphur yellow beneath the tail, are winterbirds in London and other parts of the south and east ofEngland, whither they almost all migrate in late summerfrom the hill streams of the west and north, where theybreed. They may be seen along the Thames in Londonfrom about the beginning of September to early GREY WAGTAILS Occasionally they are found resting in some City garden orchurchyard, or on some high ledge of a building in the middleof the most densely overbuilt areas. Sometimes they appearin pairs, even in the autumn and early winter months, whenbirds family ties appear loosest; but usually we see singlebirds scattered here and there along favourite reaches of theriver. One of their most frequented haunts is off the ChelseaEmbankment, where they can find rest on certain floatingtimbers when the shore-line is submerged at high water. Atall states of the tide they can often be seen flirting theiryellow tails, or flitting with their sharp double call-note, BIRDS IN LONDON 331 along the riverside at Chiswick Mall or to rest on the water, like the gulls, they are less athome on the river between Westminster and St. Pauls ; thenoise of the traffic and the absence of any convenient resting-place at high water keeps them restless and ti
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirdspi, bookyear1922
