PALLID SWIFT – A NEW FILEY BIRD
One of the benefits of ringing at Filey is the fact that you can bring you car right up to the site and have some degree of comfort whilst also commanding a good view across the Country Park, Filey Town and the top scrub. In fact quite often birds have come to the ringers rather than having to walk the whole area with little reward. This was true of the ringing week starting October 21st, with the first Pallas’s Warbler showing itself on the edge of the bushes on 22nd .
On the 24th, George Watola and I were getting down to the mundane process of ringing Greenfinches, as there was little sign of migrants after the previous two days fall of thrushes, when a small bird move quickly through the scrub past the cars which attracted our interest. In fact we were so convinced on the possibility of an extreme rarity, we got an FBOG team together to help us locate it, as it had flown down towards the caravan site. After a fruitless search GVW and I walked back towards the cars to carry on processing the Greenfinches.
While walking back at approx. 1140 I saw a swift appear low over the bushes heading towards me. I shouted to GVW and we both had close views down to 20m as it flew low around the car park. The extensive white throat immediately struck me, which continue above the bill onto the forehead. As it was low and below the tree line, I saw that the upperparts were mid brown with a pale scaly appearance to the rump and flanks. Both GVW and I shouted "pallid" as the bird started to fly above us at about 50m. With the sun behind us, I could see that the underwing looked pale around the inner primaries and secondaries, contrasting against dark wing tips and underwing coverts.
I raced to put out a garbled message over the CB and the team looking for the other bird thought we had trapped it, but a repeat message had them racing towards us as the bird was still circling above our heads.
Structurally it appeared broader and blunter winged against memories of Common Swift which gave it a slower sometimes "paddling" like flight rather than the fluttering, energetic movements of Common Swift.
About 15 people managed to see the bird as it flew around the county park for approx 15 minutes before drifting south over the town for 10 minutes and then lost from view.
Description derived from my notes and comments
made by other observers;
Typical swift shaped with sickle
shaped wings appearing blunter ended (at times) and broader towards the base
especially when gliding. Tail had a shallow fork, which appeared almost square
when spread. The structure of the wings made the flight seem less energetic
than common, with rhythmic shallow wing beats interspersed with much gliding.
When gliding head-on the body looked bulky with wings held curved down. All
observers commented on the different flight, some couldn't put their finger
on what but most said it was the broad wing structure and slower wing beats.
Everyone commented on the extensive white throat, spreading across the whole of the lower head and extending onto the forehead which was always visible even when the bird was almost silhouetted against the bright sky. The paleness of the head also isolated the dark area surrounding the eye.
The body was mid brown in colour, best seen when viewed at eye-level
against dark pine trees, with distinctive pale scaling on the rump, flanks and
upperwing coverts making the mantle look slightly darker. The undersides were
only clearly seen when it was low or with the light behind. The body was mid
brown contrasting with the white throat. The wing tips (outer primaries) were
dark as were the underwing coverts contrasting with paler inner primaries and
the secondaries. Most observers noted this feature even describing it similar
to the effect seen on Sooty Shearwater.
When directly overhead however, against the bright sky it would look all
dark and it was hard to pick out any of the aforementioned features, other than
the flight and structure.
With an upsurge in records since the late 1990’s, one wonders whether this is related to observer awareness or a change in the species’ range. How many October apus have been casually passed off as Common Swift in the past? The birds seen during the 1999 influx were all thought to be first-winter because of the lack of a dark ‘saddle’ whereas this bird did show a darker mantle and may relate to an adult.
Having been one of the team who saw the swift in 1999, again from the ringing site, which was too distant to get any features and was almost certainly the second Pallid that turned up at Flamborough, it was a great feeling to have been able to see and this time positively identify this bird.
What of the other bird? To this day George and I believe it was rarer than Pallid Swift and I have my own thoughts on what it was – but as our recorder said of the 1999 swift “near misses don’t count”.