I hear other photographers talk in cliches quite often, especially in the USA. They talk of "keepers", pictures good enough not to delete that is, and today I can see what they mean. I am absolutely thrilled by these two "keepers' . Looking at the results after quite a bit of effort, it fills me with satisfaction, and my own favourite cliche springs to mind, "I love it when a plan comes together". Dippers are hard to get good photos of. Every year I make an effort to photograph them , trying to improve on the pictures already taken. But, these images don't even begin to tell the story. When I got back from the USA at the end of last month I almost immediately set about building a hide on the river next to a nest site that I had found last year. Dippers are known to be early breeders so I needed to get on and build the hide before the birds started to go to nest. I have seen Dippers on every visit but today is the only time that I saw just one, previously I have watched a pair of birds. The hide is a comfy, well camouflaged structure which is almost completely hidden by natural vegitation, bracken, moss and leaves etc. I sat in there yesterday for several hours and was really surprised that no Dippers showed by the hide although I did see them upstream. So today, I couldn't imagine that would be the case again and it wasn't, but you wouldn't call it busy to say the least. I sat waiting and waiting, most of the time taken up by adjusting the hide, making it more robust and a better place to photograph from. If it was just a case of something to hide in everything would be perfect but the problem is having the room to secure a large camera lens without a tripod. Suddenly a Dipper arrived on one of the favourite midstream boulders and started to sing, I smiled to myself, today was going to be worthwhile after all. It got even better when it flew towards me and landed on the waterfall just 10 feet or so away. I really struggled with the camera, there just wasn't enough room but I did get the results of course, as you can see. It stayed with me for a few minutes and then was gone. I decided that enough was enough with he hide. The squinting through the lens at a ridiculous angle and balancing the camera precarously just wasn't an acceptable solution. I set about enlarging the interior of the hide simply by pushing up on the roof and sides and then using strong sticks to take up the slack, and that seemed to work. Of course, all this disturbance had ruined the external camouflage which I spent another hour attending too. In the end I was left with a larger space internally and from the outside it was totally invisible yet again. Hopefully now when I get some activity in front of the hide I will be able to get even better shots and enjoy the experience without the need to be a contortionist.
Wildlife in a Suburban Garden 
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