The 28th of February was an odd day. it was miserably overcast but unusually warm for the time of year. I toyed with the idea off giving it a miss today but I was anxious to try and work out what's going on at the nest. It was another earlier start for me and I was at the site by 8.30. AsI prepared myself a Grey Wagtail showed but there had been no further sign by 9 o'clock. On the Dipper front, at 8.38 one flew upstream calling loudly and at 8.57 it flew down stream quickly, again calling loudly. I have seen this behaviour before when the male seems to patrol his territory, always calling loudly as he flies by. I can't explain it but I have a pessimistic vibe about today, I fear that they are nesting elsewhere after seeing the female collecting moss from just in front of me yesterday and then flying away down stream with it and then seeing her not long afterwards with an empty beak?   Lots of questions still to be answered. The usual format is silence and no activity followed by the sudden arrival of the birds so there is always hope. I did have a close encounter with the male Dipper in the afternoon, but neither the male or female came to the nest today. The Grey Wagtails both turned up at the nest though, and the male proceeded to carry nesting material in to the area of the Dipper nest, building has begun. I am not sure whether the Wagtails have put the Dippers off using last years nest. I am yet to discover if that proves to be the case, if it does I will have some interest in the form of breeding Wagtails at least.  They are a nice species and I will make the most of this opportunity to get to know them better.

Some real excitement occurred,  suddenly in front of me and in the deep pool downstream of the waterfall, a female Goosander appeared. As I have explained already, it was a dull day so it was really hard to get a decent photo. Never the less, it was interesting to watch her feeding, diving to find fish, very gracefully and extremely efficiently. She slipped under the surface and must have surfaced way downstream and away from me because I never saw her fly off and I didn't see her again until 1230 when she arrived in the same place still fishing away. This time she didn't stay long and slipped away just as before. Then later in the early afternoon she was resting down by the side of the bank and then came right up to the hide and up and over the waterfall and the upstream. She didn't catch sight of me, if she had she would have taken to the wing for certain. In my experience they are that wary and very easily spooked, they take no chances at all so it was really good to watch her just literally a few feet from me.