Gavia stellata - Red-throated Diver
Feather characters. Barbules are rather short (0.5-0.9 mm). Pigment is very lightly stippled, slight or absent. Borders between cells are visible, but hardly swollen and thus too small to qualify as nodes. These nodal structures (16-20 per mm) have about the same size along the entire length of the barbules, only slightly decreasing towards the tip. Villi are absent and internodes are straight. Prongs are located on distal end of barbules and on both sides of the pennulum. Their length varies, the longest prongs can reach the same length as the adjacent internode.
Field characters. Size 53-69 cm. Weight 1551 g (1150-1980) (Dunning, 1993). Smallest diver. In breeding plumage with uniform dark grey-brown upperparts, grey head and sides of neck, dull red throat-patch. In winter, upperparts with fine white spots; white cheeks and lores, and dark crown reaching to eye or ear-coverts; eye usually in white oval. Underparts white. In winter ground colour of upperparts of adults is greyer, less brownish, than in other divers. Lower mandible of bill with distinct angulation, giving bill characteristic uptilted appearance, unlike Black-throated and Great Northern Diver.
Voice. On the breeding ground a low, guttural "kwuk-kwuk-kwuk".
Distribution. Breeding bird of northern Europe, Scotland, and Iceland. Map: see MapIt.
Habitat. Breeds on shallow freshwater pools, preferably in treeless terrains. Outside the breeding season primarily marine, but also occurring on inshore waters, pools and reservoirs.
Food. Mostly fish, captured with bill in underwater pursuit at depths of 2-9 m.