I noticed that the nest protrudes out from the bank and reaalised that I could buld a little cover amongst the brancches of a holly bush, not far from the nest and with a clear view of the comings and goings. I did a good job of building it and concealing it both from the Dippers below me and just as importantly from any walkers that might pass by on the path through the woodland adjacent. I made the front, the bit that the Dippers could see, from dead wood, leaves and fern fronds. It worked really well and reminded me of a machine gun emplacement in miniature. The rest of it was wrapped with old cam netting and then everything was disguised again with dead leaves grasses and ferns. I had to work really quickly while the birds were away from the site but the majority was completed from the inside, taking a leaf out of the Dippers book so to speak.Whe I got there this morning it wasn't long before the birds gave me the chance of a photograph (see below) but my 500 lens didn't capture the bird, the field of vision was not big enough to capture the action, the bird was throughthis field of vision in a fraction of time and all I got was either a head or a tail. I changed the lens to my 200 which meant that I could see more of the scene in front of me. I focused on the nest and set the camera to manual so that the focus was fixed and wouldn't "hunt". The ligt was taken caer of by using the manual setting because I knew that anything less than 1/2000 sec. wasn't quick enough to freeze the action. The ISO had to be set at 3200 to enable enough light in to the camera, hence the slightly un-natural and grainy look of the finished image. Then I waited again for the bird to arrive and as it flew up to the nest from the boulder below, I pressed the shutter and took 6 images in a second. Somewhere in the middle of this mini series of 6 was the photo, not perfect by a long shot, but getting there at last.

Yesterday the lack of Dippers at the nest had caused me just a tiny bit of concern, it had been such a departure from their behaviour on previous days. Imagine my delight therefore, when at 07.30 this morning, there they were on the rocks in front of me, they arrived from up river excitedly, the male singing his musical call and displaying to his mate who was carrying a beech leaf. The difference today though was that I was in a new position and looking from a different angle. I had been excited at the prospect of getting some good photos from here but the pictures that I finished up with today, exceeded all of my expectations.The female brought and deposited several leaves during the 4 hours that I was there, visiting about 6 times, far fewer than earlier in the week. She was always accompanied by the male but he has now stopped getting involved with building or lining the nest. Instead, standing guard beneath and at times singing loudly. Some interesting behaviour occurred from the male who, as he sat on the rocks beneath, eventually got tired of waiting and flew up to the nest to seemingly encourage the female to emerge. He did this on several occasions staying in the nest for only seconds. Both birds were around the nest territory, but not constantly, up until 1130. This is roughly the same pattern of behaviour that I witnessed last year. They appear to back to the habit of "domestics" in the morning and feeding in the afternoon. A quick check of the nest before I departed revealed no eggs yet. Having seen her with "nest-lining" leaves often this morning, I may re-assess my prediction of egg laying which I was expecting today or tomorrow.