Garden Wildlife UK

What does it mean when this term is added to a bird's name. For example the pied wagtail?

Black and white. Must be old English, I expect Placi has an answer in one of her ancient dictionaries.

Thanks Jacksparrow. In my book it had white wagtail and yellow wagtail but no pied. With it being the black and white I thought it was something to do with the mag-pie?

I think pied means more than one colour rather than strictly black and white although with birds it might be more specific to those colours. I await our human dictionary....

As well as trying to progress in photography I also want 2015 to be the year I kick start my wildlife hobby and get stuck into it.

ahem (adjusts lorgnette) .... "pied" = variegated, spotted.
HOWEVER (this is interesting): apparently the word "pie", a short-form of "pied", derives directly from "Pica" which as we all know is the Latin handle for ye olde magpie.
Good, that, innit ??

Many thanks to our resident etymologist for her elucidation.
I was working on a rather simpler theory. A Piebald horse is a black and white one and of course the Magpie which Placi has already mentioned which we all know is black and white.

Interesting again - in the case of "piebald" the "bald" part means "streaked" not "Nick Robinson"

I don't think 'piebald' is restricted to just black and white ................

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/piebald

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=pieba ... 142%3B1166