Great Northern Diver, Salford Quays. 9th January 2016

Great Northern Diver, Salford Quays. 9th January 2016

With Christmas and New Year dominated by bad colds and illness, it was a pleasure to open the year’s birding campaign with a woderful bird; the easiest Great Northern Diver I’m ever likely to get.

Even though we managed to miss the bird in the first hour of so of our trying, it was just as we were driving away that I felt sure that I had glimpsed the bird on the water exactly where I had been less than fifteen minutes earlier. We managed to quickly park the car in the forecourt of Chiquito’s Mexican Restaurant (3 Capital Quay, Trafford Road, Salford M50 3WL)  where there were plenty of spaces and (presumably only at weekends) the pay and display was ten pence for two hours !!!. It is just by the Salford Quays tram stop.

My guess was right and this time we immediately made contact with the bird which was about thirty feet from us and entirely unconcerned by either us or the many trams trundling past regularly.