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Red throated Diver

Coate Water, Wiltshire, UK. 23 March 2008.

When we arrived at the dam at the northern end of this relatively compact lake, I immediately found the bird, well out in the middle, at a range much too great for my Canon EOS 350D & EF400/F5.6, even with a x1.4 TC. Also the conditions were overcast and the lighting conditions were all wrong, since the dam faces south. The chances of getting good pics seemed remote to say the least.

I had heard that the bird tended to favour the northern end of the west bank, from which the light might be better, so we headed over there, whereupon the bird drifted off towards the north-east corner! Chasing after it was unsuccessful, and again the light was poor. So, the best plan seemed to be to return to the west bank and wait and see if it came closer. After a while it did exactly that, and suddenly surfaced from a prolonged dive right in front of us. I just had a chance to get a few shots, one of which was in focus. But with heavy cloud the colours were poor (see other shots of this bird on the Winter 08 page). The bird then disappeared, and further waiting seemed unlikely to be productive, so we decided to stretch our legs and walk round the lake...

During this time, the weather improved, and the sun even started to appear from time to time. So at the end of the circuit, it seemed worthwhile trying for another attempt at diver pics, but surely the bird wouldn't come close again?

After a bit of a wait, the diver reappeared closer, and suddenly there it was again right in front of us, coming up from another dive just a few metres out! I just had time to get onto the bird, which virtually filled the frame, but with the x1.4 TC on, focus lock was agonisingly slow. Nevertheless, I managed to acquire a lock of sorts. But the bird was moving all the time, and altering its direction in relation to the camera. In the first few shots the central auto-focus area was on the bird's body, and the crucial eye region was behind and out of focus. In the last shot (shown above) the bird had turned so it was sideways on to the camera, so the eye and body were almost at the same distance. The bird then dived and re-appeared 10's of metres away. Afterwards, I found that there had been only 3 seconds between my first and last shot during this all too brief encounter! The bird must have been on the surface in this close position for less than 10 seconds in total. Also, by a great stoke of luck, this close approach had coincided with one of the sun's brief appearances that day.

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