Great Northern Divers at Gigha 20th April 2023

It was Mrs U's birthday yesterday and as we are currently holidaying on The Isle of Arran we decided to celebrate at the Boathouse Restaurant on the nearby island of Gigha, the southernmost island in The Hebrides and which lies to the west of Arran, and for us required two short car ferry trips, one from Arran to Kintyre and the second from a place called Tayinloan on Kintyre over to Gigha.

Gigha is very  small, being only seven miles long and one and a half miles wide and since 2002 has been owned entirely by the island community..

The weather in Scotland is always a leap of faith but our trust has been duly rewarded with a week of glorious sunny weather that brought a breathtaking almost surreal beauty to the landscape around us. 

The Paps of Jura seen from Gigha

We stayed on Gigha overnight so we could take our time exploring the island and visit the world famous camellia and rhododendron garden at Achamore, once owned, along with the whole island, by the Horlick family. And no, they were nothing to do with the famous hot drink!

Everyone we met on the island were unfailingly friendly and welcoming and it made me proud to  be Scots.No head down from strangers and pretending you were invisible here. Quite the reverse.

The following morning was again sunny but with the same persistent easterly wind of yesterday as we walked along the only road on the island, to the southern end, which was no hardship as it was only about a mile. Here you could go no further but stand and look out to sea with the faintest blur on the horizon that was Ireland.Not a human sound of any sort disturbed the peace, just the crying of gulls and the excitable kirrick calls of Sandwich Terns, newly arrived from Africa and no doubt rejoicing in similar weather, although a mite cooler, than that they had left behind in Africa.

This deserted place beyond any human habitation was where one could feel truly alone, beautiful in the sunlight shimmering off the sea, casting a bright sealight that illuminated the space twixt sea and sky. Where the land shelved gently to the seashore on our right, its contour was marked by rich golden yellow gashes of gorse, as it curved around to a distant headland with the open sea beyond. 

 

On the other side of the bay lay two unoccupied islets, occupied solely by Common Gulls and Greylag Geese Safe there to nest and raise their young knowing they would be untroubled by any human presence. 

A concrete walkway extended from the shore out into the sea, a hundred or so metres long and joined at the far end to a jetty  where the Gigha ferry was moored overnight. A storage shed of weather beaten concrete stood on the jetty, with lobster pots, ropes, nets, flotation buoys and other fishing paraphernalia lying in a guddle along its side. A bright red life buoy clung to the rust stained wall and a large sign proclaimed this was GIGHA in case you were in any doubt. This seemingly abandoned structure and its cohort of fishing gear only served to enhance the sense of isolation. 

I scanned the bay with my bins and saw a Great Northern Diver very close to the jetty. These impressive birds, in large numbers, spend the winter all around the west coast of Scotland and its islands, remaining here until May before moving to Iceland to breed. Opposite our rented cottage on Arran up to five are currently still present in the bay at Catacol and we see them every morning, now rapidly moulting into their smart black and white breeding plumage.

We walked out to the jetty, the strong wind catching at us. Turnng at the end we walked alongside the shed to its end and turning once again slipped into a small walkway between it and the end of the jetty. Here we were out of the wind and stood looking out over the bay. It was an ideal viewpoint. 

There was no sign of the diver I had seen a few minutes earlier but I sensed it would return and in the meantime, looking out across the bay with its ever changing blue and green sea shadows, the waves gently lapping at the jetty supports and the calling of gulls coming to us on the wind, we settled to let the spirit of this lonely deserted place assert itself. 

For one used to a more hectic existence in an ever more crowded part of Britain I had by sheer chance found a place that was truly peaceful and the encounter became almost spiritual. So unusual a feeling it at first took me by surprise, engendering a benign anxiety but soon resolving itself into something that felt entirely natural and uplifting.

I looked again, out and over the bay and found four Great Northerns idling the time away asleep, while my wife checking all around, counted no less than ten scattered randomly round and about us on the sea. Most were in various transitional stages from dull winter greys to a summer plumage of black profusely patterned with spots and squares of white on their upperparts. Like us the divers obviously found this bay much to their liking but for differing reasons, for us it was the peace and tranquillity, for the divers shelter and food.

I cannot be certain how long we stood enjoying this simple pleasure, not long for sure before a diver surfaced just off the jetty. It was well advanced into summer breeding dress but its head was salted with white where the black  feathering had yet to assert itself. As its head turned the sun caught its eye and it gleamed ruby red.To see this large bird so close is not an everyday occurence, least of all in almost full summer plumage.

Chance had brought us here and as often happens it was the unexpected nature of the encounter that made it so thrilling to experience. I had left my camera in the car a mile back at our accommodation. Now I was torn between prolonging this experience or going back for the camera. 

The diver submerged and I took this as a cue to go and get the camera.Twenty minutes and I was back with the car. Would the diver still be here? Very much on edge I rejoined my wife who advised it was still around  but currently underwater. It re-surfaced but further out. We waited and after several dives it was back near to the jetty.

I took the chance and fired off many images with my new camera. I particularly liked the ones where the diver was being carried on the crest of a breaking wave. the white water a coat of froth as it slalomed down the wave into a trough of blue and green.

Watching, the diver seemed to become one with the sea, its natural home for most of the year, Its body almost awash and viewed from above was broad and laterally compressed, a natural submarine, its legs and huge paddle feet almost at the extreme end of its body. For someone used to only seeing these divers on inland reservoirs in their dull winter plumage this was such a treat.

The diver moved further out into the bay. But surely if there were ten earlier there must be others nearby? For a while we stood but saw little. A pair of Shelducks flew past and more Sandwich Terns, dazzlingly white in the sun, flew in from the sea.

I reflected that it really did not matter if no other diver came near, the experience of just minutes ago was more than enough but even that was transcended by the sense of calm engendered by nothing more than a combination sea and sun at this unremarkable location

My wife nudged me back to reality. Another diver was right in front of us having surfaced from seemingly nowhere.

Was it our friend back again? No, it most certainly was not. Here before us was a Great Northern in full summer plumage.I struggle for the words to describe the sheer elation at seeing such a beautiful bird so very close. People wait days, months, even years to capture such a sight, for these birds migrate to Iceland to breed and it is only a very short window of weeks to catch one in this plumage in Britain.Here by sheer serendipity was the chance of a lifetime.

The diver rose once more from the depths to float low in the water, A marvel of black and white patterning, chequered squares of white on its back, a neck collar of white and black piping separated from similar on its breast sides by a broad neck band of iridescent verdite green. The impressive head, silky black with eyes that were no more than wine red studs.A massive bill of black carried by its large head. I drank it all in as this wonderful bird sat in the sunshine on a blue sea.Who could ask for more?

The diver was in no hurry and after a dive re-surfaced once more to idle and look around.Regularly it would snorkle with half submerged head as if looking for its next victim.

For the next half an hour we enjoyed the company of this spectacular creature.Sometimes close sometimes distant.

I said to my wife we  should come back tomorrow as the weather was predicted to remain the same but I knew in my heart that it would not be the same as today.It never is.This was a one off although it was tempting to think otherwise. 

The divers were further out now anyway, as the tide ebbed and it was time for us to go to catch the hourly ferry back to the mainland.

The sun shone, the sea lapped at the jetty and gulls cried as the heart stopping scenery stretched away for an eternity all around us. Life felt so very good.