Reports of a Great Northern Diver landing at Lanishen Reservoir in Cardiff was enough to get the pulses racing and when my great birding mate Steve Bool said shall we get down there to take a look I jumped at the chance.
The Great Northern Diver breeds in Iceland and is a Winter visitor to the UK, they are usually found off the coast of Scotland and eastern England. Although during and after Winter storms it can be found anywhere along the coast and very rarely on inland waters, which has happened to this bird. It is the largest diver that we have in the UK with the others being the Red Throated (which we had both seen a few weeks previous at The Cardiff Barrage) and Black Throated.
When we arrived the weather was miserable but we both decided to have a look as it would be yet another lifer for me and Steve hadn't seen one for years. A very kind chap who was on one of the boats gave us directions to where it was last seen, so we strolled around scanning the reservoir with our binoculars until Steve finally spotted it right out in the middle of the water. As the weather had been so bad Steve had left his scope in the car so he rushed back to fetch it. I walked a bit further along the track and managed to get a bit closer to the bird so rattled off a few shots. By this time the rain had eased so giving us a window of opportunity to get some good views, pictures and footage.
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| my first great northern diver |
Steve by this time had returned with his scope and got this lovely footage.
It was great to finally be able to tick this one off what a great bird.
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| more great northern diver action |
After about forty five minutes of spending quality time with the Diver The heavy rain came back in again, but we were more than happy with our photos and videos so decided to call it a day. No coffee and cake this time as we were both drenched by the time we got back to the van but we had both seen and recorded it The Great Northern Diver what a bird.
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