Pacific Diver in Northern Ireland

Twitchers were in a flap after this rare bird was spotted in one of Northern Ireland’s remote locations.  It was called a Pacific Loon or Diver and it was thousands of miles from its usual home.  Jack Brennan, reported in the Belfast Telegraph, that seeing this bird was the equivalent of “Seeing Elvis walking around Belfast’s City centre”.

I am not a twitcher but a bird watcher and so I did not go to see this bird however many hundreds did including Martin McClenaghan, who was one of the party that went to Scotland with us, so it is thanks to him for supplying these photographs for you all to see.

In fact, this Diver is rarely seen away from its native lands along the Pacific coast of America and only migrates for 3 months of the year to the inner Arctic Lakes in the summer so it was a bit of a mystery why it turned up in the waters of Lough Fea, perched high in the picturesque Sperrin mountains between Counties Tyrone and Derry/Londonderry.  It can only be assumed that the stormy weather that crossed the Atlantic battering our shores brought the Diver with it.

A lady who was visiting from Scotland first spotted the bird, and although she did not know what the bird was, she managed to take a very good photograph and had it identified by an expert birder.

The Pacific Loon walks extremely awkwardly on land, and cannot take flight from land at all. It requires about 30-50 meters of open water to take flight, flapping and pattering across the surface.  Below are a few facts about this bird.

Food - Fish and aquatic invertebrates.  Dives after prey, tracking it visually, and seizing it with bill.

Nest may be a simple depression in the ground with scant lining or a large, solid, well-formed bowl of grasses and aquatic plants, located immediately adjacent to water.

Clutch Size  1–2 eggs

Egg Description - Variable shades of buff, brown, and olive-green.

Condition at Hatching - Downy and active; leaves nest within one or two days.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this rarity we had for a few weeks in the Province.  Once again thank you Martin for allowing me to edit and show your photographs.

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