The white eyelids of Dippers are thought to be a "flag" to other dippers.

A big disappointment this morning at the nest site.  I tried to arrive a little earlier than normal, aware that there is always a bit more activity around the nest area in the mornings.  Within a few minutes of being inside the hide a Dipper could be seen downstream not too far away. I kept my fingers crossed hoping that it would fly back up to me and then I got quite excited to see that it was carrying nesting material.  My heart sank when it fly over the river and then further away from me.  It seems that the nest in use is not going to be the one only a few feet from the hide. That's really disappointing if that turns out to be the case.  I sat waiting for it to reappear but it didn't and I am not too sure whether the bird seen "carrying" was a male or female? S  As males are known to do the majority of the nest building then it's likely that it was the male, the female was nowhere to be seen. I am assuming she was in the new nest somewhere?  On top of this disappointment my camera threw a "wobbly" and wouldn't focus. 

After half an hour when the Dipper hadn't reappeared, I could picture the bird sitting keeping watch over the nest and the female so I went for a look.  Sure enough, there he was in an area where I thought he would be.  He had nesting material in his beak but didn't fly to the new nest site.  My plan will be to use some camouflage and sit in that area tucked away out of site and see if I can discover the new site. In the meantime the bird flew back up stream and I went back to my hide.  It didn't take long before the male Dipper was on the rocks right in front of me and I took some nice photos. Unfortunately the camera was really struggling so it's a miracle that I took any pictures at all.

 I assumed the worse and decided to come home and see if I could sort things out.  Thankfully, the camera wasn't broken. It was just a case of tightening a couple of tiny screws and things were back to normal!