Red-throated Diver

Above: Red-throated Diver (winter plumage).
Below: Great Northern Diver (winter plumage).

Red-throated divers, in their summer breeding plumage are beautiful birds. Sadly, you'll have to go to Scotland to photograph them in their finest plumage as they do not (as far as I am aware) breed south of the border. They do, however, spend the winter further south. They are found at sea, around the coast of the UK, all through the winter and also turn up occasionally on both marine lakes and on inland fresh water lakes. They are not common but we do get one or two turning up in the North West most winters, usually on the sea.

Red-throated divers have a dark grey back heavily marked due to the fact that it's back and wing feathers have white edges. The tail is grey and the back of the neck and crown are also grey with some paler streaking or flecks. The belly, front of the neck, chin and cheeks are all white. The eye is a deep red and the beak is pale grey and slightly upturned. The shorts legs are black (not that you're likely to see them).

By contrast, the great northern diver (shown below left for comparison) is more brown where the red-throated is grey. The back is streaked but only a slightly paler brown colour rather than the prominent white of the red-throated. The black throated diver is darker and has no streaking on it's back, neck or crown. It has a clearly visible white flank patch towards the rear.

Red-throated divers are surprisingly confiding in winter. I don't know if this is true when breeding but my experience, so far, has been that they can be fairly easy to approach without showing any undue signs of distress or anxiety. I should say that I've not seen many and I have got close to very few of these, so it may be that I was just lucky with some brave individuals. However, if my experience is fairly typical, you should be able to get some good pictures if you're lucky enough to find one of these birds in the right place.

So where is the right place? Well I can't tell you a place that you are guaranteed to see these birds in winter. You'll just have to watch the sightings posted on the Birdguides web site, or on other similar sites, to see when they are reported in the North West. When they are you'll have to make a decision on whether it's worth making the trip to try to take a photograph. As for me, if it's a sighting on the sea, I don't bother. Even if it's still there, the chances are it'll be too far out for a decent picture. Far better bets are reports of sightings on marine or fresh water lakes. In recent years, they have turned up on West Kirby Marine Lake, Crosby Marine Lake and Fairhaven Lake at Lytham St. Annes.

I find that these smaller marine lakes, with all round easy access, offer the best chances for good photographs. The all round access allows you to get the sun between you and the bird (although some only allow all round access at low tide, so check before you go). These lakes are also small enough to allow you to get reasonably close to the bird at some point on the lakes edge but please use common sense and back off at the first signs of distress. Once reported, they also tend to stick around for a few days on these lakes (although that's not guaranteed) but it does present your best chance. So good luck!