I have been watching these Dippers regularly since my recent return from Cape Town. This species is always an early nester and it's a good species to watch at this time of the year. I am not giving the location away because for sure, there would be some disturbance and thats just what they don't need. In fact, they are very easily distracted from their breeding activities at this stage and if there is any hint of human activity near to their chosen nest site they will depart the area for several hours and could potentially decide to move the location. Consequently I have been very, very careful to hide my presence from them. I attached my Panasonic Lumix camera to my Swarovski Scope - this is colloquially called digiscoping - and from 30 yards away and hidden by trees and undergrowth I could get frame filling images. The weather was bad and the light was really dim, there was even a light drizzle. It was far too dull for conventional photography but setting the ISO to 5000 - yes I said 5000 - I was getting about a 1/30 second shutter speed. 4k movie at this speed was a bit hazy but well worth recording and now you know the distance involved, it's a pretty good result. Heres a screen shot.
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