Great Northern divers are big eaters

OUT on the channel, only 30 yards from the shore, three Great Northern divers are fishing.

One has caught a sizeable, red-brown crab and is rotating it in its beak, preparatory to swallowing it. The crab waves its feet and claws making things more difficult, but the bird will, of course, succeed. It is part of nature’s enduring plan that divers should eat crabs.

Great Northern divers that breed in Iceland, Greenland and Canada are seen around our coasts in winter, often close to shore. Some still retain vestiges of their vivid black-and-white summer plumage, striking against the blue sea, the white ‘spots’ on their backs like spangles catching the sunlight.