Great Photos Graham, I just wondered when you were watching them dive did you notice a very high head lunge just as it went down (almost like a RNGrebe)? It was a very distinctive movement i noted on the Torbay bird and watching several video clips of them, possibly an aid to identification but needs looking into..
Hi Mike Did not really see anything like that when they were diving just a fairly straight head into the water and sinking action but they were mainly feeding in a fairly fast flowing piece of water coming out of a river mouth into the wider channel so that may have affected how they dived -- they did often do some head under searching rather like Great Northerns before a dive but on other occasions it seemed the diving was a bit more frantic up then down quickly presumably for fairly fast moving prey; never saw one come up with anything so the fish were presumably all eaten under water
Thanks Graham, another point of interest was the very pale fluffed up back view of the head in some of your shots - this is another winter feature to look out for as the basal part of the nape feathers are white (darker in Black-throated). The Torbay bird rear view as it wing flapped almost presented the nape as silvery white. Sorry for the delay in reply I've been away in Mexico.
3 comments:
Great Photos Graham, I just wondered when you were watching them dive did you notice a very high head lunge just as it went down (almost like a RNGrebe)? It was a very distinctive movement i noted on the Torbay bird and watching several video clips of them, possibly an aid to identification but needs looking into..
Hi Mike
Did not really see anything like that when they were diving just a fairly straight head into the water and sinking action but they were mainly feeding in a fairly fast flowing piece of water coming out of a river mouth into the wider channel so that may have affected how they dived -- they did often do some head under searching rather like Great Northerns before a dive but on other occasions it seemed the diving was a bit more frantic up then down quickly presumably for fairly fast moving prey; never saw one come up with anything so the fish were presumably all eaten under water
Thanks Graham, another point of interest was the very pale fluffed up back view of the head in some of your shots - this is another winter feature to look out for as the basal part of the nape feathers are white (darker in Black-throated). The Torbay bird rear view as it wing flapped almost presented the nape as silvery white. Sorry for the delay in reply I've been away in Mexico.
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