Wagtails and pipits | Motacillidae

Kwikstaarten en piepers | Lavanderas y bisbitas

Slender, long-legged songbirds that walk rather than hop: the foot pushes off, the head nods with it, and the long tail is pumped up and down without a pause — in the wagtails hard enough to rock the whole body. The bill is thin, straight and pointed, made for picking insects off the ground, off wet stones or out of the air; the leg is long and fine, and in the pipits the claw of the hind toe is greatly lengthened, nearly as long as the toe itself, which gives purchase in grass and sedge. Two appearances on one frame: the wagtails boldly marked in black, white, grey and yellow, the pipits brown and streaked and separated from each other mainly on call and wing formula. The nest is a cup on the ground, hidden under a tussock or in a niche, and the song is delivered in the air: up, sing, and down again on a parachuting descent.