When frequent storms, onshore winds and heavy wing moult coincide it can make things tricky for some seabirds. If this leads to uncharacteristic movements, towards land and sheltered feeding (and sometimes poor health and death) it is known as a wreck. This has recently occurred in some areas of the deeper North Sea leading to some wrecking of auks and divers.
There maybe as many as 100 White-billed Divers wintering in the North Sea in some years but these are usually far offshore, well out of sight from the land. Plane and boat surveys established that a larger population than previously thought is out there, but aside from specific staging areas off Aberdeenshire and the Outer Hebrides, they are still a rare bird.
Over the past month the east coast from the Tyne up to Aberdeenshire has seen a wreck of White-billed Divers with dozens of birds involved. Although a few have been picked up as tideline corpses the majority appear to be healthy enough but with flight so inefficient during wing moult, they have shifted from usual feeding ares (perhaps due to storms) and drifted onshore to shallow coasts and harbours to rest and feed.
As part of my writing project I had planned to head to Aberdeenshire and visit Portsoy where as many as 20 birds gather offshore in late spring. However when a bird turned up on the River Blyth in Northumberland, and was then joined by a second, I could see the potential to see one of these iconic giant divers up close and remove an additional Scottish trip from my already packed itinerary.
Early doors on Tyneside I watched a hulking banana bill offshore on calm seas, and when the bird wing-flapped it was clear the extent if the moult.
In the harbour there was another, very confiding White-billed Diver that was a joy to watch as it preened and loafed around.
I spent an hour or more drinking this bird in before heading west a little, into the North Pennines to seek out early spring gatherings of Black Grouse (one field alone held 50 birds, 20 others were seen nearby) and territorial upland waders as I headed down for a night at my folks in York.
