36. African Pied Wagtail It’s “wagtail by name, wagtail by nature”, for this friendly, inquisitive and instantly recognisable bird. It spends a lot of time on the ground, often near water such as streams or pools, including suburban swimming pools: they are regular visitors to Africama’s pool, sometimes coming right up the edge but – like some other Africama residents – never actually getting in. Some wagtails are migratory from the north, but this African Pied is resident and very widely distributed across West, Equatorial, Central, Easter and Southern Africa. The tail-wagging is impossible to miss. Why do they do it? Though it looks like what we might call a ‘nervous tic’ in a human being, all the wagtails do it and it’s more like a behavioural mannerism. Perhaps it helps them to identify one another. It would be interesting to know if males and females bob and wag in distinct ways. There are other birds with distinctive tail or wing-flicks: Groundscraper Thrushes frequently raise one wing (usually the left, as it has seemed to me) to display an ‘armpit’. Much more generally, all the different kinds of birds walk, fly, and perch in their own distinctive ways, in this much like people. Birds of AFRICAMA House 77