Willie Wagtail

The common and well-known Willie Wagtail is distributed widely throughout mainland Australia and Papua New Guinea but is only an occasional vagrant to Tasmania.

The Willie Wagtail inhabits a variety of open grasslands, woodlands, parks and gardens. It tends to avoid dense forests. In urban situations, the Willie Wagtail can become very accepting of human presence and will often nest in domestic gardens or sheds.

In farming districts, the bird is often seen in close contact with cattle, sheep and horses, sometimes riding on the backs of the animals as they prey on insects stirred up when they move through the paddocks.

The bird is generally described as being sedentary but in southern regions of the continent there can be some seasonal movement of local populations of Willie Wagtails.

Two interesting habits of the Willie Wagtail are that it often calls during moonlit nights throughout the breeding season and that it can be very defensive of its territory, sometimes tackling much larger birds than itself.

In Papua New Guinea, folklore has it that the Willie Wagtail is the ghost of a dead relative and that they bring good luck. Some Australian aboriginal lore suggests the bird is a gossiper and will tell the spirit of the dead if anyone in camp speaks unkindly of them.