GRC Blog


Welcome to the GRC Recorders pages. This blog provides details on all the relevant news of Glamorgan’s scarcer birds, plus all BBRC & WRP decisions that affect us locally. It will also be used to document the status and occurrence of these scarcer species and we welcome contributions from anyone with photographs, artwork or documentation of rarities past, present and future. The GRC also welcomes all seawatching news from around Glamorgan and news of passage migrants in spring & autumn, uncommon birds in our area and unusual behaviour.


All visitors are welcome. You must first register by sending an email to GlamRC@gmail.com before you can contribute. An invite will be sent to your email address. Blog content will be strictly moderated. Access to pages and downloads are available to everyone. All photographs on this blog remain the property of the originator.
If you would like to use photos, please arrange permission beforehand.


The Glamorgan Rarities Committee, in conjunction with the Glamorgan Bird Club & Gower Wildlife , have agreed to co-operate with the Welsh Ornithological Society in the sharing of bird records & photographs in the interest of keeping accurate records and to promote birdwatching in North, Mid & South Wales.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Great Shearwater in or out?

Peters Howlett's sighting of a Great Shearwater 14 miles WSW of Worm's Head on 7th Aug begs the question Do we have a marine boundary to the county? If, as I suspect, the answer is no, then are there guidelines elsewhere for defining one? Clearly his Pomarine Skua c.200m outside of Swansea Harbour on the same trip clearly does qualify! What with Martin's Cory's it's sizing up to be a good year for seabirds and we haven't even had any decent winds yet.

5 comments:

DRWG said...

Judging by my reckoning 14m WSW of the Worm, suggests it was in Welsh waters, Lundy [Devon] being about same distance again. However going ESE from St. Govens Hd in Pembs, you would be in the same sea area, as it is about c14m off that headland. If Peter wants to submit it for VC41, then I've no objections to that. We might have to asked the WRP if they have any sea area boundaries concerning southern counties of Wales that border the Bristol Channel/Severn Est and SW approaches. On the same question, what do the English counties claim?
Interesting question Barry.

Mark Hipkin said...

I like a record to be seen from land but if I were to see a bird from a boat that I would easily have seen from land it would make me think twice, especially if it was a Tropicbird!
14 miles out does seem to fit the category "at sea." However, the record itself is of interest and it would be good to have it documented in a report for future reference which would need it to be allocated a recording area I'm guessing?

DRWG said...

The shearwater record is officially 'at sea' and therefore isn't part of Glamorgan or any other Welsh county. It is however in Welsh waters. I have asked PH for notes on both the shearwater and the Pom Skua, the former would be a WRP species and the latter would be considered by the GRC.

Joek Roex said...

Interesting subject, Barry. I came across the following site

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Wales

where it says under Boundary:

"The boundary for Wales' maritime unitary authorities is generally at the 3 mile limit except where special provisions apply where islands are within three miles of more than one Unitary authority or where unitary authorities are themselves closer than 3 miles to one another."

Maybe someone can make some sense out of this?

It also speaks of a 12 nautical mile (22.22 km) boundary.

Joek Roex said...

Sorry, I realize that by maritime UAs they mean islands.

Equidistance seems to be the general rule.