photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
Charlie Fleming | all galleries >> Birds of the world in Taxonomic order. Species count to December 2023 is 980 >> Dipper - Cinclus cinclus >> A Devon Dipper Diary > 15 March the male bringing grass to the nest.
previous | next
15-MAR-2011

15 March the male bringing grass to the nest.

A wet and misty day made it hard to get photos today but from a log pile opposite the nest, I watched the pair who are still bringing material, the male taking as much responsibility in nest building as the female. There is nothing different to report except I did hear the male actually singing from inside the nest. He's obviously in a high state of breeding condition. Again, they were displaying to each other but not with the same intensity as the day before, perhaps the miserable dull day just literally "damped" things down a bit. At one point, the male brought a very large stem of dried grass complete with roots. Instinctively it was still dunked and thoroughly soaked before it was taken up in to the nest. I watched the male arrive at the nest with a crash landing in to the water just in front of the favourite boulder and then swim up to it before climbing out. This was repeated several times. Each time the birds swopped over, the vacating bird would invariably flop in to the water before swimming back to the boulder before deciding in which direction to fly, sometimes over to me, too close to photograph, but mostly down river. Sometimes they would spend 5 minutes or so collecting nesting material, arriving back again with a full beak. On other occasions they would be away for 20 minutes or so, obviously feeding.

Pentax K-5
1/320s f/4.5 at 500.0mm iso1600 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
share
Type your message and click Add Comment
It is best to login or register first but you may post as a guest.
Enter an optional name and contact email address. Name
Name Email
help private comment