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.
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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.
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?
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.
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.
Sorry, I realize that by maritime UAs they mean islands.
Equidistance seems to be the general rule.
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