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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HH75" data-source="post: 1248923" data-attributes="member: 61">Hi Paul,Not wanting to put the cat among the pigeons or anything (after all, your post already implicitly raises the possibilities of pekinensis being misidentified as Pallid Swift), but, as an eastern taxon, pekinensis could be expected to show a late autumn east coast bias, and such a bias is apparent in many recent October/November swift influxes...(before I get slaughtered by anyone lucky enough to have found a Pallid at this time of year, might I point out that I have no doubt that genuine Pallids can and do occur in autumn...I'm just asking a hypothetical question of how many are claimed as Pallids on a sort of 'oh, there's a swift, it's pale, it's October, so it's a Pallid' sort of basis, rather than through a more rigourous examination of the features, not always easy on a rapidly moving bird whose very appearance can vary so much with changes in ambient light?)   Will have to dig my notes on pekinensis out when I get home, though I do recall them looking pretty much like nominate apus in many respects at the sort of distance at which I was looking at them: sure, they stood out as being markedly browner than the numerous Pacifics, but, then, that species is genuinely blacker than even apus.                                        Regards,                                             Harry</blockquote>