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Own every animal of the family Motacillidae.
Wagtails and pipits are slender songbirds that walk and run on the ground. Wagtails bob their tails up and down almost constantly. Pipits are more discreet and often brownish. The family occurs worldwide, from grasslands to riverbanks. Many feed on insects caught on the ground.
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Motacillidae
Anthus petrosus · Least concern
The rock pipit guards its stretch of rocky coast fiercely. Yet males sometimes cross into a neighbour's territory to help chase off an intruder: a behaviour otherwise known only in the African fiddler crab. John Walcott first showed it was a distinct species in 1789 and called it the sea lark; George Montagu gave it its formal name in 1798.
Photo: MPF (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Motacillidae
Anthus pratensis · Least concern
'Pipit' is simply this bird's call note: the word, first recorded by Thomas Pennant in 1768, imitates it. The meadow pipit is one of the cuckoo's most important hosts and a key prey of merlins and hen harriers. In French farmland, its numbers have fallen by 68%.
Photo: Andreas Trepte (CC BY-SA 2.5)
Motacillidae
Motacilla alba · Least concern
In Britain and Ireland it mostly appears as the pied wagtail, a black-backed form named after the naturalist William Yarrell. It breeds across Eurasia up to 75 degrees north and has a toehold in western Alaska, whose birds winter in tropical Asia.
Photo: Jac. Janssen from BAARLO LB, NL (CC BY 2.0)
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