Of Polly washdish and poke pudding
NO motorist using the parking apron outside a supermarket, a petrol station, a cinema or any other public venue can have failed to notice them. Those small black-and-white birds with heads nodding and long tails wagging as they patrol what appears to be naked tarmac. In fact, it offers small insects—the birds sometimes leap a foot into the air to snatch them, together with other tiny food fragments.
‘It was thought to be a harbinger of rain, beckoning the next downpour with its tail,
Pied wagtails have no fear of humans and can be seen, too, on any concourse where outdoor seating and pavement eating may yield crumbs. Fond of assembling in large groups to overnight in urban trees—one arboreal hotel, author Austen Dobbs noted that they would raid maggot tins during fishing contests.
