A glass half empty man learns a lesson.

Well the glass is always half empty man is me because whenever I go after a bird the day after it was reported I always think it has gone before I've even started to search.Not a good thing for a birder.

So early this morning when I went over to Shustoke Reservoir to try and see if the Black-throated Diver reported yesterday was still about I was certain it must have had moved on.

When I arrived at not long after 8.00AM there was not a sole about.Not a single birder was present.I stood by the disabled car park and did a thorough search of the reservoir and did not see it.It's not here!!!!

Two other birders turned up and they did a thorough search and couldn't find it.They decided to move on.It's not here!!!!

Two more birders arrived.They also did a thorough search and couldn't find it.It's not here!!!!

I was thinking of moving on when one of the birders said "Hey that's a diver out there" My god he was right and it wasn't too far away.It is here!!!! I learned a valuable lesson here to be more optimistic and to keep searching.

The Diver was about 100 metres out and near to buoy 9.For the next 30 minutes all it did was to have a good wash and preen.It must have been very dirty.These are a couple of shots when it was first spotted.

There were five of us now watching it preen when suddenly it dived.Keen to find it again we were all searching out on the reservoir when it popped up right in front of us only a few metres away.We were all so shocked no one got a shot of it before it dived again.For the next 30 minutes it slowly made it's way to the west end sometimes coming in fairly close before finally heading to the centre of the reservoir.

Cracking bird although it's a juvenile and not showing summer plumage.Also a Warks year tick for me.Here are some of my better shots.