Yellow-headed Wagtail (white, mountain, masked).
The yellow-headed wagtails have a bright yellow breast, which makes them easy to recognize in nature. Their tail is shorter than that of white wagtails. The yellow-headed wagtail has a bluish-gray back and a pure yellow head.
These insectivorous birds arrive in small flocks and individually during the peak of snowmelt, staying around thawed patches where they gather emerging flies and other insects, which they successfully catch even in the air, making short but swift chases and dives.
On warm spring days, males are mainly occupied with territory disputes and singing. Yellow-headed wagtails settle in meadows and along riverbanks. Here, they run very nimbly along the riverbank, sometimes jumping on rocks, sometimes fluttering to branches hanging over the water, constantly bobbing their tails up and down. They got their name from the constant shaking of their tails. Unlike most small birds, they move on the ground by running rather than hopping.
They usually search for food near mountain streams, but often far from water — on cliffs and steep slopes. Therefore, wagtails often feed on various aquatic insects and their larvae, small crustaceans, as well as beetles, spiders, and so on.
They nest twice in the summer in crevices of walls, on rafters under bridges, in soil depressions, in tree hollows, under the roots of trees and shrubs, and similar places. The loosely built nest is lined with bits of fur and hair. The clutch, laid 1 or 2 times in summer, mostly consists of 5-6 mottled eggs. The predominant colors are gray and yellow, as well as black and white.
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