Getting a good photo of a Dipper is becoming quite a challenge and a bit of an obsession to be honest. When the weather got just a bit brighter by mid afternoon after a dreary start, I got myself sorted and headed out for a couple of hours to see if today was going to be better than the last few outings. I was pleased when I walked up the river bank, to see a Dipper almost immediately.  It was perched mid-stream on a rock which was only slightly protruding from the water. Then, as I got to my usual spot, there was another!  This is the first time with certainty,  that I have seen two birds close together. This one, like the first, left immediately.  I don’t understand why Dipper should be so wary of human beings, but they certainly are hard to sneak up on.  Once they catch sight of you, they are off in a flash.  These two weren’t actually in the same stretch of water and I suspect that they were both on the edge of their respective territories. So, I got myself tucked away nicely, sat down, camouflaged myself with camo netting  and waited it out, this time for around an hour and a half. Again it was a no show. When I started my walk home I saw a Dipper immediately, just upstream where I had seen one when I first arrived. Murphy’s law that’s called!  I immediately covered myself with the netting and crawled my way towards it. It was hard work but working well and I managed to get within 20 feet of it and took lots of photos before it flew back up stream. Still not the photo I am after but there is always tomorrow.

In this photo you can see the kind of problems photographing a Dipper can give. This one looked so good through the viewfinder but then the contrast of white breast and glare from the water proved really hard to get a good shot.