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.


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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.

Thursday 5 November 2015

Swift species over Glyn-Neath

Following a call at 14:40 from Eddie Hunter regarding a Swift species flying over Glyn-Neath this afternoon, I raced up to see it hoping for a Pallid. I got there around 15:30 and even though Eddie had seen the bird again briefly before I got there, it took us until 16:30 to see it again and pin it down.

Never seen Pallid before so armed with camera I rattled off as many shots as I was able to take. It showed at close range over the rooftops and School off New Street but the light was tragic and constant drizzle not helping either.

A few looks at it through the bins made me feel it was paler than I'd expect a Common Swift to look and that upper wing coverts were boldly fringed pale making the inner wing look scaly. The overall upper tones of the bird seeming fairly concolourous with no obvious saddle. Away from the upper wing I did not particularly notice a scaly look to the body plumage of notice any underwing features. Flight appeared more relaxed and lethargic, it appeared a bulky bird too.

Photos now processed show that no plumage features can be assessed safely from them. However, the shape and structure of the bird does make it look interesting. A few features to concentrate on are the relative length of t4 and t5, the broadness of the wing towards the tip, the bulk of the body and size of the bill. T4 & T5 seem fairly similar in length as expected for Pallid. Wings do appear broad towards the tip which is good for Pallid. The body appears fairly heavy which is good for Pallid. And the bill appears very prominent and big which is good for Pallid. Whether the structural appearance of this bird is enough to ID safely I'm not sure. Barry Stewart shares my sentiments and I thank him for his comments. We agree from the photos it probably is a Pallid but without the support of plumage features fear it might not be enough to be certain. Perhaps others might like to comment?









1 comment:

Barry Stewart said...

Morphologically the bird looks spot on. Let's just hope it's there tomorrow and someone can record some plumage details, although the forecast does not look brilliant.