To many, it may seem boring returning to the river repeatedly as I have for the last  two and a half weeks.  But to me it is just my way of making the best of my opportunities.  I am studying the Dippers and have got to know them as individuals now. Yesterday was slightly disappointing in that I didn't get a real good close encounter, in spite of seeing two pairs in their territories. Today was a good one as far as observations were concerned.  I took a friend who hadn't seen Dipper previously and we had some spanking views of not only feeding behaviour, but also a real good bit of interaction. One of the pairs engaging in a display flight.  They were chasing around very quickly, one following on the tail of the other like two fighter planes engaging in a dog fight. It was quite spectacular and at one point they were just feet from us as they flashed by. After an hour or so, my friend left and I took up a position further up the river and waited almost until dark, hoping for at least one of the four birds that I had previously seen, to perch close to me…….. but as on the other 20 or so  occasions, it didn't happen (yet again). My cam. was working well, it must have been, because a pair of wild Mallard came in to land in front of me and I took some photos as you can see. I like the picture below, it has an almost "oil-painting" feel about it.   Other birds seen today were Grey Wagtail and the first Kingfisher for quite some time.