Wednesday 8 May 2013

Fair Isle Odd/Interesting Swallow





Any ideas? I had this bird come off the sea on Fair Isle this morning. Seems to look like a bird that hatched this year. Could it be an abbarent Swallow or perhaps a Swallow/Sand Martin hybrid. It has pretty bright pinkish legs. In the last picture the face shows a peachy wash but it was actually white. No red as in a typical Swallow. The brown head is really interesting. Any thoughts would be very welcome.

5 comments:

  1. Stephen Dunstan8 May 2013 at 22:25

    A similar bird was seen in flight on Unst at the weekend. Per Mike Pennington they apparently breed in Southern Spain in winter.

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  2. Hi Rob, as Stephen says they do breed in the south in the winter and juvenile birds have been documented in BB occasionally about 20 years ago. If you have a copy of the BBFO reports to hand there is a piece in one about 10 years ago on a swallow x sand Martin in spring. Not too dissimilar to your bird but much smaller and structurally like a sand Martin. Deryk and I trapped a swallow house Martin hybrid in Kent in the early 90s (1991i think) Del may have some pics of that bird.

    Steve

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  4. Crap photo of my bird here: http://www.nature-shetland.co.uk/naturelatest/pics13/DSC04360.jpg. I have others, which are worse, which show that the face pattern was similar to yours. Couldn't really see the upperparts as it was in flight only and one a very grey overcast day.

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  5. Also see my photo of an aberant Swallow c.29th April 2011 on this blog.

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