Distribution and Habitat
Widespread and abundant, the Willie Wagtail is found across most of Australia and New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Bismarck Archipelago, and eastern Indonesia. It is sedentary across most of Australia, though some areas have recorded seasonal movements; it is an autumn and winter visitor to northeastern New South Wales and southeast Queensland, as well as the Gulf Country and parts of Cape York Peninsula in the far north. It is a vagrant to Tasmania, and on occasion reaches Lord Howe Island. There is one record from Mangere Island in the Chatham Islands archipelago east of New Zealand in 2002. The Willie Wagtail was released in Hawaii around 1922 to control insects on livestock, but the introduction was unsuccessful and the last sighting was at Koko Head in 1937.
The Willie Wagtail is at home in a wide variety of habitats, but avoids densely forested areas such as rainforest. It prefers semi-open woodland or grassland with scattered trees, often near wetlands or bodies of water. In New Guinea, it inhabits manmade clearings and grasslands, as well as open forest and mangroves. On Guadalcanal, it was reported from open areas and coconut groves. It has responded well to human alteration of the landscape and can often be seen hunting in open, grassed areas such as lawns, gardens, parkland, and sporting grounds. The species spread into the Western Australian Wheatbelt after the original vegetation had been cleared for agriculture.
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