Sunday23rd January. The Specific Pacific Twitch!

 

Late on Saturday evening when I was already slumbering, my good mate The Early Birder called me with some news and advice. Basically he said that if I wanted to go and see the long staying Pacific Diver in South Wales then I should go soon because a new fence was being erected around the reservoir to keep unwanted folk out. Unfortunately birders were classed as some of those "persona non grata". It's a long story why birders are not welcomed into the Eglwys Nunydd Reservoir near Port Talbot and I don't have the full details of why the exclusion order was implemented in the first place but it applies even to local birders. Local people do gain access to the reservoir, which is owned by TATA Steel, a company that has huge steelworks and other factories in the Port Talbot area, but they do so by negotiating a tricky little diversion around the main gates into the site which are protected by padlocks that only members of Angling and Sailing Clubs have. TATA also employ a security firm to patrol the reservoir and they, in the case of a few unlucky birders who had visited to see the Diver before the turn of the year, have the power to evict people from the site if they are not fishing or sailing.

Mark's message was to tell me that the "back way in" was being sealed off by the erection of a new two-metre high metal fence and within a week or so there would no longer be guaranteed access by using the "cheats" entrance. Of course having gained entry still wouldn't be an assurance that you wouldn't get kicked out once inside. I had a tentative "life tick" Pacific Diver from a sighting in Penzance Bay some years ago. I say tentative because I was stood next to a local birder who informed me that the third blob from the left in a loose raft of a dozen other blobs (apparently Great Northern Divers) was a Pacific Diver. Through the scope I could see a slightly more defined blob although to my eyes still undistinguishable from any of the other blobs but I was assured by the other birder that it was the real deal even though no real discernible features could be made out other than the fact that it was a Diver and was smaller than the other attendant Divers. So it went on the list but was one of those records that was pencilled in with the faintest pencil imaginable. The South Wales Pacific Diver was found at the end of November and would show to hundreds of birders as closely as "six-feet" away but I remained unmoved especially when the horror stories of the difficulty of access and the fact that getting chucked out was a very real possibility. After all I had that tentative tick to keep. Then a few of my own peers started to post some excellent photos and write blogs of their own trips to see the bird and my own pique was reignited. A couple of weeks before we had made (tentative) plans to travel to see the Diver but a wet weather forecast had put us off. Now it seemed we had to move fast, or miss out, whatever the elements threw at us. I (tentatively) put the idea to Mrs Caley and was answered with a "no way" and "we've already been out for the day and I don't want to travel three hundred miles again, thank you" which was fair enough. The reproach didn't stop me making (tentative) plans for the following morning though, like checking the route, how long it would take to get there and the access details that I'd received from a couple of friends who had been. It was to my absolute surprise then in the morning, when Mrs Caley walked down the stairs to join me in the living room and said, "Come on then, let's go, I know you want to!".

The weather wasn't great but we were ready and on the road by seven o'clock with a two and a half hour journey ahead of us. Mark was also going and would arrive ahead of us so would update us on any problems and to where the bird was. It should be an easy twitch because the Pacific Diver had taken to feeding at the end of the reservoir closest to the entry point. When it had first been found it was at the far end so a long walk was required to get good views, the water body measures some mile and a half long by half a mile wide, about twice the size of the largest basin at Farmoor. For some reason the SatNav wanted to send us via Gloucester and the Forest of Dean, I assumed that the ongoing road improvements around Swindon had necessitated road closures on the normal route. I ignored the advice of the automated traffic assistant and made my way down to the M4 at Newbury anyway and turned right, bound for the Severn Bridge. I couldn't work out why the SatNav tried to send us off at every junction and why the remaining miles to our destination was increasing with every mile we travelled. There were no issues on the route ahead whatsoever. As we passed the A49 just before the bridge when the SatNav was suggesting a seventy mile detour around the Severn estuary it suddenly dawned on me that I'd altered the settings the day before to avoid toll roads since I didn't want to be directed on to the M6 toll on my way to Carsington Water. The SatNav therefore was trying to get me to avoid the Severn Bridge. The fact that there are no longer any tolls to pay on the Bridge and that Wales now has free entry was lost on the system since obviously nobody had told it. Therein lies a problem with a factory fitted SatNav, they don't get automatically updated from the internet as your TomTom would. So once over the bridge and the SatNav finally accepting that we wouldn't need to drive around it anymore, the miles left went from one hundred and thirty to sixty odd! 

Our next "drama" came when we were around twenty miles from Port Talbot. Mark called and incredulously said aghast, "It's gone!". "What do you mean?", I replied, "The Diver, it took off from the middle of the reservoir, flew up high and disappeared over some pylons in the distance" and again, "I'm not joking mate, it's flown off!" At first I couldn't believe what Mark had said, I'm not sure I had taken it all in. A bird that had been present for nearly two months in the same place had seemingly decided to leave on the day we'd travelled to see it. I'm glad he wasn't joking because I was failing to see any funny side of what would be one of the biggest kicks in my twitching teeth since the Thursley Common Rustic Bunting (that had been present for almost four months) did a moonlit flit the night before we were finally set free from our Lockdown chains, we had taken the very first opportunity to go and see it and arrived about eight hours too late. We needed a break for the necessities and so pulled into a service area and discussed our next move while we had a coffee. We were only fourteen miles from Margam where we'd park so we considered that we may as well continue on our way and see if the Diver had returned to the reservoir. I've seen supposedly well established birds look as if they're flying away for good before, the American Black Tern in Dorset flew off high just after we arrived to see that and disappeared but came back an hour later, and I figured that the Pacific Diver which spends the majority of its time swimming on and under water had to sometimes exercise its wing muscles to keep them in working order. So I was fairly hopeful that it'd be there when we got there. Mark called again to say that he and his mate had given up and were leaving to go and photograph a Black Redstart in Somerset!

Now for the tricky part, getting in to the reservoir! As I mentioned I was armed with precise details of where to go but of course they were written by somebody who knew where to go. Relating those directions to somebody who didn't have the foggiest where he was and getting them to act on them can be hard. Quite often when twitching, it can be initially difficult to decipher directions and many false starts are made before somebody comes along to help. On this occasion it didn't seem too difficult, if we could work out which way to go from the cemetery carpark that is. I don't approach any task lightly and had studied the aerial map of the reservoir and its surrounds many times over to get an idea of what lay ahead. But on the ground everything looked very different. We (I) managed to go off in the wrong direction twice before finally finding a gap in the hedge which would take us to a gap in some tall trees which took us to a road and to the gate where privileged folk could gain access. From there we had to find a telegraph pole, surprisingly only thirty metres from the gate, negotiate a small piece of South Wales Bayou, without Wellington Boots you would probably get swallowed up by a mud gurgling swamp monster, find and follow a concrete culvert, and then climb up a bank and go through a gate to emerge at the edge of the huge reservoir, all theoretically easy but in reality not. Oh and don't forget that while navigating our way in we had to avoid the frequent security sweeps by the TATA secret police. Phew!

Mud Gurgling Swamp Monster Habitat

The Culvert to the Pacific

Eglwys Nunydd "Pacific" Reservoir

In the event we, and another chap who had no idea where to go and who was very ill-clad in training shoes and thus ended up looking like half a mud gurgling swamp monster, made it to the reservoir almost unscathed and intact. There was no sign of the Diver but because of the news imparted by Mark earlier I had carried my scope in so I set it up and scanned the furthest end of the reservoir. The very first bird I spotted looked distinctly like the Diver shaped blob that I'd been shown in Cornwall all those years before. I squinted a bit more and pulled the scope into full zoom and yes, I was pretty sure that it was the Pacific Diver. Well, I was pretty sure it was a Diver, it definitely wasn't a Grebe, but at that distance it could have been any type of Diver and it wouldn't be right just to assume that it was the Pacific one plus we'd driven a long way to see it. So we elected to run the gauntlet of the security forces and walk around the reservoir to get a closer view and therefore a positive ID and of course decent views and photos. I made a stop and scan of the far end of the water every hundred metres or so and halfway there finally convinced myself that the bird we were looking at was indeed the one that we wanted. I phoned Mark and gave him the good news which he didn't take so well since he was already thirty miles away on his way to Somerset!

Can you see it? Nope.

Two other birders had seen us walking around the reservoir and had caught us up, most people do, and inquired if we'd seen the Diver. Nobody else had a scope so they wouldn't have been able to see the bird since it was still the best part of a mile away. I assured them that the Diver was indeed present but was right under the bank at the far end and that we'd need to get much closer to really appreciate it. We were all a bit nervous but I always think that the worse thing that can happen to you, if you're somewhere you shouldn't be, is to be asked to leave and walk back the way you've come. Unless there are big dogs (or cows) involved then you might have to run part of the way and Old Caley isn't really built for running these days. We pushed on, narrowing the visually indeterminable distance step by step. Now I was sure that the target bird was in sight I gave up scanning for it and just concentrated on getting there. I was well aware that stood up on the surrounding track above the water we were very visible not just to other folk but by the Diver as well so when we got to around fifty metres away I sat Mrs Caley down on some steps and erected the scope so that she could enjoy fine views of the bird. I intended to sneak around closer using the steep embankment for cover as I often do at my local Farmoor. Our three fellow watchers however, failed to lower their profiles and the Pacific Diver sailed slowly out further from the bank. Time to take some record shots in case it flew again.

Pacific Diver (definitely)

Before I left Mrs Caley alone with the scope, I scanned around the reservoir and was delighted to find a Slavonian Grebe, a very pleasant surprise year tick. The Grebe looked tiny set against the grey and bleak vastness of water. The last Slav we'd seen was at very close quarters at Furzton Lake in Milton Keynes just before Christmas and was our last year tick of 2021. This year we have a June holiday booked for Scotland so it'll be good to see them in their summer breeding finery again rather than the nondescript grey and white dress that all Grebe species (and Divers) sport in the winter. Slavonian grebes always have that piercing red eye though but that was hard to discern at the range we were watching this one. For just a few seconds the Grebe and the Diver met up, preened mutually and then parted ways.

Pacific Diver & Slavonian Grebe

The Pacific Diver was swimming towards the bank, presumably to resume its diving and fishing again so I took my leave and walked around the embankment, keeping my profile below the skyline. I was attempting to judge when I'd be alongside the Diver and when I thought I was I crept up the grassy bank and popped my head over the top. My first two attempts failed because the Diver must have been submerged and I couldn't see it at all until it popped up a little further along from my position. I struck third time lucky when I emerged right in line with it although it was still a fair way out. 

Using my noddle a bit more, I waited until the Diver dived under and then moved along to where I thought it would resurface. This time I'd got it spot on and a minute later was staring into the eyes of a Pacific Diver from no more than twenty-feet away. After the distant Cornish blob this was a thrilling encounter. Obviously because my head was above parapet the bird instantly became aware of my presence and quickly turned tail and swam away but I hurriedly took a few shots.

My next tactic was to walk a bit further around the reservoir and settle down on a concrete ledge that runs around the wall so that my profile would be softened against the masonry background. A Grey Wagtail flew in and landed close to me so I must have been far less visible. 

Grey Wagtail

The Pacific Diver surfaced from its latest fishing sortie, a little way off than my encounter of a few minutes ago but significantly it looked at ease this time and didn't appear to realise that I was there. Pacific Divers are essentially the North Pacific version of our more familiar Black-throated Diver but differ in a few subtle ways. In winter plumage such as this bird was in, a Pacific Diver doesn't exhibit a white flank patch that a Black-throated Diver would (in fact the white flank patch is considered diagnostic for identifying a Black-throated in winter). Other differences are so minor that good views really are necessary and luckily for the finder and for most of us who have seen the bird since, this bird has shown very well indeed. The head shape of the Pacific Diver is more rounded, the neck thicker and the bill is small, almost dainty in fact. The bird I was watching fulfilled all of these criteria.

What happened next though left me well and truly gobsmacked and grinning from ear to ear when the Diver suddenly appeared so close to me that I could have almost cuddled it! I actually jumped a little bit when the superb creature surfaced and looked directly at me but still didn't appear to register my presence. Others had said that if you get low down onto the concrete then the Diver would happily feed close into the bank with no qualms at all and how true that proved to be. I rattled off a whole volley of shots over the thirty-seconds or so that the bird was in front of me. Blob well and truly banished and that faintest of pencil entries in the life list could be permanently inked in, in the darkest ink available!

When the Diver had swum past me and dived again I didn't see the need to follow it so I just sat there and watched it from afar once again. I had had my thrill. My phone rang, it was Mark again and he asked, "Where is it then and where are you?". He had sensibly turned around and returned to the reservoir to get his photos of the Diver. Leave it to me Mark, I'll find it for you! We passed him and his mates about halfway back, check his blog for some superior photos.

The walk back to the swamp was uneventful although we did spy a police car driving down towards the sailing club. We had another unexpected year tick in the shape of a Common Sandpiper that flew rapidly, as they always do, across the reservoir as we approached. The walk back through the sticky mud seemed easier now we knew where we going and we refound the car without any trouble. I'm glad that we made the belated effort to see the Pacific Diver which when seen as closely as we had seen it, is a very fine bird indeed and certainly not just a blob!

Year List additions;

119) Pacific Diver, 120) Slavonian Grebe, 121) Common Sandpiper