There was quite a lot of Dipper activity today. When I arrived on the river I saw a pair quite close to the start of my walk and they moved on down the river as I walked, keeping a safe distance ahead of me. I half expected them to double back as they would do if they were out of their territory but I was pleased when they carried on past the hide. This meant of course that this pair were the residents of the "hide stretch" of river. In it's self quite a discovery. I was pleased as I sat in the hide because I knew, based on my previous observations over 3 years, that they would have to fly back up to me before too long. There is another Dipper territory down river and they wouldn't stay there for long, and so it proved. It was about 15 minutes or so before they appeared to my right feeding with a lot of enthusiasm. Eventually one of the pair, I think the female came to the rocks exactly where she had been yesterday and I snapped away happily. It's good when you haven't had to wait too long. There was the slightest hint of a wing fluttering courtship display which would indicate that things are progressing along the right lines. They both retreated to the midstream boulder where I had seen them lots of times in previous years. Then suddenly, and this is very interesting, two Dippers flew past me very quickly and I thought they had gone for today. But I was wrong. I looked back to the rock and one bird still remained. I think what had happened was another Dipper had entered the territory and immediately been chased upstream by the dominant male. After everything had quietened I checked the old nest from two years ago. Amazingly and I am very pleased to report that there was brand new fresh moss in the bowl of the nest meaning of course that they have started to use this nest. This doesn't necessarily mean that they will continue to use this nest but it is great news and a massive step in the right direction.

I well remember that this time last year, and for that matter, the year before, I saw Grey Wagtail regularly when I was waiting in my river side hide. This of course, is no surprise because both species have almost identical habitat requirements and anywhere that Dippers are found, Grey Wagtails will be close behind. They are even known to nest next to each other, that is, close to, or above water, under a bridge or behind a log and so on. However, it is fair to say that Grey Wagtails are a little less demanding and they can be found along the banks of muddy rivers and streams which is a habitat that no self respecting Dipper would ever frequent. So the rule is probably this, find a Dipper and Wagtails will be near, but finding a Wagtail will not necessarily find you a Dipper. At this time of the year the males, who have a breeding plumage and an eclipse plumage are just starting to attain the solid black bib that they only have in the height of the breeding season. They are quite noisy at this time of year and one bird has just displayed in front of me, singing a song and then parachute gliding with fluttering wings from rock to rock. It was literally on the rocks on the waterfall just in front of me and I managed one or two photos, one particularly good one when he was in the middle of his noisy song.

I walked back up river after a couple of hours and was pleased to see a Dipper not that far from the hide. It was singing away loudly from a boulder that I must have seen a Dipper perched on at least 100 times in the last 3 years. He saw me even though I was 25 metres away and then flew up to another favourite Dipper boulder. He disappeared from view and then as expected, doubled back to fly down towards the hide. It wasn't many seconds before I saw another, this one was much more silent, obviously a female and just like the male she doubled back to fly down stream to join her mate. How many times have I seen that? In short, there was no obvious nesting behaviour observed today.

I had been waiting for the water levels to retreat just a little before I started this year's observations. When I arrived at the site I was pleased to see that last year's hide was still standing and even though it was now, just a collection of camo material and sticks I managed to reform it back in to an acceptable hide. This is positioned over-looking a nest which remains from previous years, although not the one that they had used last year. This is my third year of studying Dippers on this stretch of river and in previous years I have discovered so much about their breeding behaviour. Comparing my notes, it was around this date last year when signs of breeding activity had commenced when I had seen two birds together. Activity had gradually increased in intensity as the month progressed. Today I was slightly disappointed not to see a bird in front of, or near the hide but this could have been due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, the water level is much higher than it was last year and looking at the bankside vegetation it seems that the water has been consistently higher than in previous recent winters. Also, in previous years the birds had been absent from the nest area during the late morning and afternoon and as my visit was in the late morning today this would follow the same pattern so I am not too concerned. On a large mid-stream rock that I know as a favourite perch I could see droppings which looked fresh, so it appears that Dippers had been in the area very recently. When I walked further down the river to the adjoining territory I had a close encounter with a Dipper and it was nice to see one for the first time this year.

Getting straight to the point...... the Dipper chicks are with 99% certainty, dead!

It had rained a little bit off and on all day but by 4 pm it had brightened up. I had always planned to visit late afternoon and early evening. As I walked across the field and reached the river, immediately my heart sank, the water was so high it was lapping at the bottom of the nest. I saw a Dipper nearby so I didn't immediately think that it was a full blown disaster. I quickly concealed myself and then looked properly, there was no entrance hole visible, this was under the water. The majority of the nest was not submerged though. I sat and waited to see if the parents came and it wasn't long before the male arrived with a beak full of food. As you can see, he perched on the nest and tried to find a way in to feed his youngsters. It was a pathetic spectacle as he searched around the nest, all he time with a beak full of food, trying to get in to the nest. I quickly made a decision, I decided to cross the river and planned to open up the top of the nest so that the birds could get in to their chicks. It was either give them that chance or let the chicks perish for certain, if they were not dead already that is. I ran back across the field and down the road to cross by some stepping stones but when I got there the stones were totally submerged as well, I had no way of getting across the river! There was another way, via a bridge quite a way upstream which is what I did. I made my way down the side of the swollen river being careful not to fall in and eventually some 30 minutes later I was at the nest which was just below me. I lowered myself down head first towards the nest, holding on with my left hand and praying not to fall in to the torrent. I poked through the top of the nest and sadly I could feel the stone cold chicks, lifeless and seemingly dead. I removed them one by one, cupped them in my hand and blew on them with my warm breath. Miraculously, after 5 minutes or so there was some tiny movement and they started to come back to life again. I was really heartened by this, with them in my hand I put them in to my arm pit and held them next to my skin, the warmest part of my body. I had them there for 20 minutes trying to bring up their body temperature. However, I needed to get them back in to the nest as soon as I could so I took the decision to put them back in and hope for the best. I tidied up the new entrance hole and retreated back the way I had come. Back at the hide opposite I watched and waited, and prayed. Suddenly the female arrived at the nest, after some investigation she entered through the new entrance and to my utter amazement and joy she seemed to start to brood the chicks. At one point she did some tidying up of the new entrance and later even emerged to catch some food which she took in to the nest. Whether she fed that to the chicks I will never know, were they alive or had they continued to lose body heat again. After quite a while the male returned to the scene with a beak full of food, he tried on several occasions to feed his youngsters, perching on the edge of the nest calling to them loudly but sadly he didn't feed them. I am guessing because they didn't gape for food which was a really bad sign. I am praying that the female was able to brood them enough to get them active again but I will not know the answer to that until the morning. I appreciate that it is almost certainly against the law to take chicks from a nest but my conscience is clear on this. I have been with this family of Dippers for 7 weeks, almost daily and watched them build a nest, watched them incubate and watched them feeding their chicks for the last 7 days. It would have been impossible to sit and watch them perish without trying to help. Perhaps I should have let nature take its course? But I didn't, I did what I think is right. However, the chicks have almost certainly died in the nest. The parents were unable to brood the chicks or feed them for several hours. There is a very small chance that my intervention may have saved them but I am not hopeful. If they have survived it will be an absolute miracle.

But more about yesterdays watching which was incredibly interesting. The chicks are doing really well, I peered in to the nest which wasn't too hard because the opening has become larger due to constant use and the male's habit of hanging on as he feeds his chicks. I could see them really well and also noted that, at 5 days old they have trebled in size already. Feeding by the parents is none stop and at times both birds were back and forth in less than a minute, constantly feeding the obviously voracious youngsters. The female left-off from brooding and hunted for prey right in front of the nest, taking just seconds to find prey which she delivered, flopped back caught more and then delivered that morsel about three times in a minute. The male however seems to spend comparatively longer catching food and when he comes back to the nest he is usually carrying larger insects such as mayfly. Yesterday I saw him catch a small fish which he dealt with, Kingfisher-like, beating it to death, he didn't bring that to the nest but flew opposite to eat it himself, incredible that he could make the judgement that it was too large and not suitable for the nestlings. There seemed to be an uneasy relationship between the parent birds, at one point they displayed to each other and then tumbled in to the water rolling around as though fighting but is more likely to be a precursor to mating?

At the nest this evening it was good to see the male working like a demon collecting food for his 4 chicks. What struck me was not only how efficient and skilled he was at finding food, but how much available insect life there must be. I kept a really accurate record of the time between visits to the nest. In 41 minutes from 18.11 to18.51, the male visted a total of 10 times. I have to confess that this level of feeding far exceeded what I expected. The prey being fed is larger than I expected and seems to be mainly Mayfly as I expected it would be.