Different kinds of diver

So you're used to seeing divers on E,W&W but probably not the kind I searched for this weekend. I was looking for the birds of the family Gaviidae which Brits know as divers and Americans call Loons. This was not a quest conducive to photography as the birds were a long, long way away. By way of illustration, the red circle is drawn in the general area my lifer Black-throated Diver, Gavia arctica, was feeding. It was very windy and I left my digicam at home so digiscoping these wasn't an option either.

I was surprised however to add a second diver species and even get a photograph. The shot below was just intended to be a general shot of the view but on examining it on the computer I was amazed to see that the second species I found, my lifer Great Northern Diver, stands out in the shot pretty clearly. Well, Ok, not that clearly. Red ring to assist again:

With a bit of a crop you can clearly see the bird in question though.....

 

This was interesting birding. Staring at the waves for long periods through a scope in the cold is not generally how I like to bird and yet it is undeniably good to mix it up from time to time and how else is one to see new things without trying to see new things? Apparently at this location divers can be seen much closer to the rocks sometimes so I will probably be returning to try and do better in future (plus I need to bag some grebes for my list too)