My yellows make it a wagtail hat-trick

LAST year, for the breeding season I had a pair of native yellow wagtails (as I will call them) and the loan of a blue-headed cock bird with a native hen, which I’ll call the blueheaded pair. I bought the native pair in the autumn of 2020 and over-wintered them in an 8ft x 3ft x 16in wide flight cage (2.4m x 0.9m x 0.4m) in the birdroom. Then the following spring I borrowed the blue-headed pair.

My native pair were the only softbills I wintered in the birdroom. My other softbills were outside in their flights, either separated or in pairs. However, I did cover the aviary fronts with scaffolding netting to act as a wind barrier, which I removed in the spring.

I feed all my