Pallid Swift – Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire, 28^th October 1999

Sketch based on sketch drawn soon after seeing the Pallid Swift, at Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire, in October 1999.

On Monday the 25th October 1999, I spent the pertinent part of the day waiting for a ‘phone call from Jim Steele regarding going for the Isabelline Shrike at Burnmouth. It never arrived. As a result, there was no trip to Burnmouth and so I missed a good Scottish tick. Much, much worse though was the small matter of the Pallid Swift I apparently also missed when it too briefly turned up at Burnmouth (albeit briefly – as in before it was taken by a Sparrowhawk!).

After this fiasco I was taunted by the presence of several other Pallid Swifts in England and also by the continuation of the stunningly good autumn in the Scillies / south-west of England. I was particularly tantalised by the presence of one (or was it two?) Pallid Swifts at Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire.

An available tick, offering the prospect of a fourth tick in less than three months, in what was for me, and generally, a stupendous autumn, was too much to resist, after a drought of some 22 months without a tick.

I spent much of the week sweating and equivocating about the Flamborough Head bird, which exceptionally, was sticking around – a bit like me!

It was a long way to go, and twitching a swift, especially several days after day one was always going to be a dodgy proposition.

On the night of Tuesday 26th October, after I had walked the BP Grangemouth Natural Gas Pipeline route and then unsuccessfully ‘twitched’ the phalarope spp. at Linlithgow Loch (where I was told more of the Burnmouth Pallid Swift story) I had a ‘phone call from Tommy Charlton. At the time I was in the bath with my one-year old daughter Ellen, and so my ex-, Gillian, had fielded the ‘phone call for me. Apparently, the call was about a weeks’ work in the AMEC offices in Darlington.

My discussions with the two birders at Linlithgow Loch indicated that others had attempted to twitch the Pallid Swift at Flamborough Head from Scotland with mixed success, indeed, apparently some had bottled the Flamborough Head bird and then jammed in on the Burnmouth one. So, it was possible, and now I had the prospect of somehow combining it with this work in Darlington.

However, once again I was thwarted, as I wasn’t able to speak to Tommy himself until the Wednesday evening. When I finally did speak to Tommy, we quickly established that it might be advantageous for me to call into Darlington earlier than the following week!

I made arrangements with Gillian along the basis that if the Pallid Swift was still around on the Thursday morning I would have to go for it, and then stay over somewhere near Darlington so that I could be there early on the Friday morning.

Unfortunately, having packed and prepared in part that night, and completed this task the following morning, there was a noticeable absence of any positive news until 11:00! I was very much on edge until then, with the pager not in silent mode for once, and struggling to do anything useful by way of diversion.

However, in the middle of another ‘phone call to attempt to sort out my dodgy modem, the news I had been waiting for finally came through, at long last! I quickly curtailed that call, and then made one to Gillian, who gave me some friendly grief, before wishing me well.

I left at 11:00, and it proved to take a lot longer than I had anticipated. I was annoyed about the lost three hours or so as it then took me more than three hours to get to the A1(M) at Darlington. From there it didn’t get any quicker due to traffic, traffic works, etc.. I finally was able to thrash the last few miles to Flamborough Head without obstruction and was glad I did!

Throughout much of the journey, there was no news on the pager, or if there was it was one of the very few messages I missed. Once on the A1(M) though there was news and apparently it was c.1 km north of the lighthouse, but as I approached the final destination a message came through indicating that it was now near the fog station. Better still, and no need for a jog along the coast once I got there!

Unfortunately, the car park was pay and display and I had just no small change, but I was far too thrilled at being so close to another tick to be too bothered by this. I assembled my gear, made use of the very conveniently situated conveniences and then walked towards the fog station. Memories of Black Redstart and Snow Bunting on the geology field trip at the very beginning of my time at university in Hull in October 1979!

I could see that there were a few birders were there, and yes, better still, I could see the swift dashing backwards and forwards over them. On how many occasions had I ticked a bird before I got to the twitch itself?!

Anyway, for much of the next hour the bird was generally on view, although often distant, or temporarily lost to view. Soon after I first arrived it flew the closest and lowest it did throughout my stay on several occasions, most memorably back-grounded against an adjacent stretch of cliff-top, against which it appeared incredibly pale. The time of my arrival was fortuitous in other ways in addition to the location from which the bird was showing, and the ranges at which it was showing down to. The sun was already low, and the horizontal light it gave was good enough but not too bright, so plumage details were reasonably easy to see, as the bird wasn’t rendered into silhouette by bright light.

Of the pertinent i.d. features, I was able to see that, in comparison to Common Swift the:

- plumage tone was paler, milkier;

- wing-pattern involved dark outer primaries and leading edge of the underwing contrasting with the rest of the underwing, and similar on the upper-wing, where the greater coverts and the secondaries were paler;

- body colour was darker than the paler underwing, although the darker mantle producing a saddle effect was not too evident;

- feather edgings on the underparts were paler;

- the forehead and throat had a larger pale area, and there was a dark eye mask; and,

- the wing-tips and tail fork were slightly blunter and slightly shallower respectively.

Much of this was very arbitrary, although from the views I had the bird was blatantly not a Common Swift.

I was also able to see both a Fieldfare and Marsh Harrier coming in off the sea during the time I was at Flamborough Head – migration in full swing!

Some years later Graham Clark and I called in at Waterston House at Aberlady on the way back from an unsuccessful twitch for Chimney Swift on Holy Island. Here, whilst we were in the reception area we happened to be in the right place at the right time as Ian Thompson called in to report a swift was flying around over his nearby cottages. This was undoubtedly a Pallid Swift on jizz and flight action, but we just couldn’t get enough on it.