A rare sight as Diver enjoys life at lake
John works for Green Sefton, the Sefton Council service that brings together the coast & countryside, parks & green spaces, flooding & coastal erosion, risk management and grounds maintenance teams for a joined-up approach to the vital management, development and oversight of Sefton’s beautiful coastline, parks and green spaces. This column looks at the flora, fauna and history of the coastline, and the work carried out to protect it.
IT WAS only a month ago that I was waxing lyrical about the wildlife to be found around Crosby Marine Lake, from Kingfishers to Cetti’s Warblers.
Since then, the site received an early Christmas present, which is still delighting visitors into January.
A Black-Throated Diver appeared on the waves in mid-December, and clearly finds the lake to its liking, as it was still fishing away there as this column went to press.
A very rare bird in the borough, claims are usually of birds offshore where RedThroated Divers are by far the commoner species in winter.
Black-Throated Diver is more robust, with a thicker neck and bill, although like the Red-Throated, it has a gleaming white throat in winter, especially as a juvenile, which the Crosby bird is.
In summer the plumage is transformed into breeding dress and a checker-board vision in black and white, with a black throat and smoky grey head and nape.
For now though, the bird on the Marine Lake is very much in winter apparel and, as the name suggests, is perfectly adapted to hunting prey under the waves.
The diver can cover long distances underwater, and the last time I watched it, the bird travelled from the north end of the lake to the sheltered south-east corner, largely beneath the surface, in just a few short minutes.
Its dagger-shaped bill is perfectly formed to catch fish, crabs and molluscs, and the bird can spend upwards of two minutes at a time underwater as it searches for prey.
Often the Black-Throated Diver sails by very close to the Lake House, meaning you can have the opportunity of watching it from the warmth of the venue’s restaurant, while enjoying a tasty snack or meal.
The diver isn’t the only bird to be found on the lake at this time of year though - regular fishing cormorants are joined by ducks including Goldeneye, the males striking in black and white plumage with a staring yellow eye.
Great Crested Grebes, smaller and more slender than the diver, appear too.
And last week, a drake Common Scoter dropped in, a species more usually observed at range offshore, where thousands of these northern ducks spend the winter in the relative shelter of Liverpool Bay.
When conditions get tough offshore, maritime species including divers, grebes and seaducks, often appear on marine lakes like those at Crosby and Southport, where they can rest and fish without enduring the rigours of the open sea.
Waders and gulls use Crosby Coastal Park’s grasslands to roost in winter too, and the dunes are still host to a population of Skylarks.
Glorious as their song is in spring, these threatened birds struggle to successfully rear young at the site now, due to increased disturbance as more and more folk come to enjoy the site throughout the year.