It has been wet today, so I was somewhat hamstrung, I decided to go and have a look at the Dipper site that I was watching before I went to Australia. You may remember that the nest had failed twice, both times eggs being taken by a predator of some kind. The river was beautiful as always and now that the trees are in full leaf, it was much darker than 6 weeks ago when I had last visited. I was expecting to see the adult Dippers but had a surprise when there in the territory was a juvenile. Difficult to guess the age and of course I have no idea whether the youngster belonged to the adults that I had been watching so closely....... I would like to think so. Good to see a youngster never the less. It appeared to be independent but was not a strong flyer and seemed smaller than an adult. As it is beginning to clear up a bit, I am about to go back to the river, taking advantage of the summer's lights evening, in the hope of getting a better and closer image. If you check back later I may be able to post a better image that shows the difference between adults and juveniles............ and here it is!
Just a note about how I got this photo. I went back to the river, it was early evening. I was expecting the weather to brighten up, but it didn't, in fact it got progressively duller and wet. never the less, I made my way to the area where I had seen the young dipper this early afternoon. I was expecting the baby bird to be a bit lacking in "street cred" and that's exactly how it turned out. I sat in the spot chosen this afternoon, overlooking a couple of boulders. I was dressed in my gillie suit and this proved enough to fool the young Dipper because it wasn't long before....... there he was, posing perfectly, but the light was poor. I took 100 pictures but couldn't check if I was getting anything decent because any movement would have spooked the bird, only 10 feet from me. There was just a couple of shots that were OK because of the dullconditions and this is the best. The camera has taken its settings from the white chest of the bird and given this great effect which is what I was trying for.
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