As soon as I arrived I noticed a variety of wagtails feeding on the short grass either side of the small track up to the water treatment works. It wasn’t long before I realised that there were in fact two cracking male blue headed wagtails – they were seen side by side on a couple of occasions.

The uppertail looked dark, almost black with two noticeable white outer edges. The breast, belly, flanks and undertail coverts were a vivid yellow colour. This yellow being separated from the ear coverts by a white stripe similar in thickness to the super. This I had down as the sub-moustachial stripe but I may be wrong. The birds had a black loral stripe and black moustacial stripe. Again my topography may be out here but it was the lower border of the ear coverts anyhow. The bill was also a stealy-grey/black colour. The birds were also close enough to observe the white eye ring. The bird had a prominent white supercillium which was up-turned and more prominent towards the rear. The head, nape and ear coverts were a blue colour with a hint of grey and this colour appeared slightly darker on the ear coverts.

The mantle was a yellowy green colour and was clearly demarcated from the blue of the nape. This green colour extended down onto the rump and uppertail coverts. Tertials were brown with prominent whitish/buff edges and the wing coverts were the same medium brown colour tipped and edged with an off-white buffy colour. The legs appeared to be the same colour as the flavissima waggies.
One bird had a very slightly darker shade of blue on the head.

On the second day the birds also allowed close enough approach to be videoed using a handheld digital camcorder out of the car window. Stills were taken through the computer and have been added here. Picture 2 shows how the throat and upper-breast is a more vivid yellow colour than the lower breast and belly.