Pallid Swift - Apus Pallidus
My eldest son was in a rugby tournament today at Al Ain so in a break between games I decided to nip off to Zhackar pools which is a site I haven't visited before. As well a Glossy Ibis which I will post up shortly to further augment my Ibis collection I spent a good while pondering a small group of swifts that were hawking insects over the pools. I remembered my masterclass for birds in flight and ran off a short series to confirm my identification as Pallid Swift later on. Stops up 1 to increase the exposure, mode to Servo to continually focus and focus points all activated - finally put the steady setting to 2 to allow for the shake of panning the camera horozontally. The result was at least one very decent shot above which shows up the "scaling" on the after parts and the nice dark eye patch on the more frosty head. Pallid Swift indeed rather than a common swift with its more uniform brown colouring.
The other markings I know to look for are a fairly distinct light chin patch and almost transluscent pale primaries and secondaries - the shot above and below show these up quite well and again the shot above catches the scaling.
I leave you with a few more shots - lovely birds.
Above : Flaps down !
Cruise !
A bird that can spend months on the wing.
The wingspan is about 44 cm on these birds when extended like this.
Pallid Swift, Apus Pallidus
Zhakar Pools, Al Ain, UAE
12 January 2013
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