Diver!Diver!Diver!Diver!

The Artist has done it again, so it was straight off down to Broadsands this afternoon, where I found a few familiar faces staring off into the distance....

They were looking this-a-way...;

Four flavours of divers

[what do you mean, you can't see them?!?]

Yes, a lovely, [if mobile and blimmin' distant] Pacific Diver, present with a Red-throat and also Black-throated and Great Northern Divers! It was well off to the north, seemingly about Roundham Head range, towards Torre Abbey to Torquay Harbour. Mostly close to the RTD, but the GND and a BTD were also up close [especially later on - I gave it two hours]. No chance of getting chin strap vs crease, but it very helpfully rolled and preened and showed me its vent strap instead! Also no thigh patch, and the distinct neck pattern - paler nape giving the contrasting vertical black marking sharp against the white throat. Made it look much more contrasty than the more two-tone Black-throat. Nice neat little bill, too, which gave it a more RTD shape to the head, but with a bigger 'large diver' neck, so a unique structure.

Enough babbling. It didn't get anywhere near close enough [you needed a BIG scope to get a good view - I love my 75x, you know.. :D ] to photo, but a couple of Black-necked Grebes did;

Cute. Very cute.

Also out there were a few Fulmars, a small group of GC Grebes, and a very smart male C Scoter.

Closer in, the gulls were much-vexed by dogs, and so mostly cleared off into the distance. Not one to be put off, I was determined to inflict at least one upon your poor retinas, so aimed and fired at a random* victim.. :D

Yuck..

Don't you feel educated?


Finally. A lot of people have taken shots of sketches in notebooks instead of the bird. Don't think I wasn't tempted...



Be Seeing You..



[[*Ok, that was a fib. It was carefully chosen for your edification as it looks a bit like something actually worth shooting. And you should have seen the flight shot I almost got... ;) ]]