Bangor Diving Club

This winter period is astonishing for someone who's been at Bangor University for 4 winters and only previously ever seeing a single Great Northern Diver in the Menai once in January 2013. There have been 3 Great Northern Divers almost without fail so far in 2014, all of which visible from Bangor Pier.

Today was no exception. Had nice views of a lone bird up the Menai and 2 more distant birds that seemed unsettled a little further out towards Beaumaris.

What happened next was completely unexpected. I picked up a 4th diver that looked a lot smaller and I could see a more rounded crown and a patch on the flanks. It looked really good for Black-throated which would be a patch mega! It dived before I could confirm and when it rose, it started to look a lot more like a Red-throated with a slightly up pointing bill. This was odd as the white patch on the flanks disappeared. When it dived again, it emerged looking like a Black-throated Diver again...what was going on!
I soon got my answer on my next scan for the emerging diver when I spotted both a Black-throated AND a Red-throated!
Three species of diver and two of these being patch ticks...fantastic!

Whilst the Red-throated got progressively closer, the Black-throated drifted further out towards Beaumaris. I managed to pick up 2 Kittiwake (another patch tick) blogging about half way between Beaumaris and Bangor.