The forest wagtail was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3] Gmelin based his account on "La Bergeronnette gris des Indes" that had been described in 1782 by the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat.

[4] The forest wagtail is now the only species placed in the genus Dendronanthus that was introduced in 1844 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth.

[5][6] The name Dendronanthus combines the Ancient Greek dendron meaning "tree" with the genus Anthus that was introduced for the pipits by Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1805.

The brown shrike (Lanius cristatus confusus) sometimes imitates the calls of the forest wagtail.

[9] As its English and scientific names imply, this is a forest species, a distinction from all other wagtails.

It migrates to the warmer parts of Asia in winter and it has been suggested that they reach southern India and Sri Lanka via the Andaman Islands.

They may also forage on the ground like a pipit and when disturbed, it flies up into the trees with a sharp pink note.

During particularly cold springs, the arrival in the summer breeding grounds near the Kedrovaya River (Ussuri Land) can be as late as the end of May.

It builds its cup-shaped nest made up of fine grass and rootlets matted with moss and cobwebs.