Tuesday 31 January 2017

White billed diver

After seeing many amazing images of the white billed diver in Linconshire, I decided last Monday to go and have a look for myself.
Unfortunately when I got to within 5 miles of the location thick fog had descended, it made driving quite dangerous, especially not knowing the roads, but I eventualy got to Kirkstead Bridge.
On arrival I could not even see to the other side of the riverbank (-25m), all of a sudden I had the feeling that the chances of seeing the diver, which has been roaming around 5 miles of river, seemed quite unlikely. The viewing was ridiculous and I couldnt help thinking that I had wasted by time and petrol getting there, however I was told that the bird had been seen 20 mins ago so there was still a chance. All of a sudden there was a sighting about 20m away from me, impossible to see the bird in the fog at that range, so decision time do I move to where the bird was or try to sus out the direction of travel and move in that direction? I did the latter and staring into the blank Linconshire fog standing on my own the beast of a diver popped up right in front of me...wow! I called some others over and it continued to dive and come up fairly close to us. After a few minutes it started heading west, it could dive and cover around 15-20m between breaths, I (and around 12 others) followed it along the river around a mile and a half, it was a case of staying with it or losing it in the thick fog, I had my fill and returned happy with absolutely stonking views of this world tick for me, what a bird!