Down at the river there were some more ducklings looking lovely with their mother. there were quite a few familys on the river, which is still quite early.
Back at the sand martins they were still showing well and I managed to work out where the nests were, which was handy so I could follow them from where they started their fligh to where they ended it. Because it was so bright I had the shutter speed at about 1/1600 and there was no change in the photo quality at all. Although to be fair, they were still pretty awful.
a bit further up I spotted a lone female goosander fishing near to the riverbank that I was standing on. It diddnt seem very bothered about me being there but eventually, once it had caught a fish, it stopped dipping its head into the water and then spotted me and so began to drift away, so I left to try and avoid disturbing it any more.
A bit further up there was a lone swallow so I decided to get a few shots of swallows in cloudless sunshine just for a record, but because the shutter speed was so high they actually came out really clear.
at the start of the rapids I caught up with my mum and dad and they pointed out a baby dipper on one of the rocks. At first I couldnt see it, I spotted one being fed by and adult furthur up. My dad asked me what i was doing, the baby dipper he meant I had appaerntly walked past. I eventually spotted it and began to get as close as I could. I managed to get some decent shots, but i managed to spook it and the dipper began to move a bit more, instead of being completely sedate.
I left the babay eventually, so that it could get on with what it was doing. A bit further up my mum and dad spotted a bird on the other side of the river. My dad reckoned it was a merlin, so I was optimistic for a unusual bird. I took a photo and looked into it, the coulors looked like either a linnet or a kestrel, although it would be a very small kestrel. The bird gave us the slip for about 10mins but once it eventually emerged it was a linnet. During that time a goosander pair appeared and swam down river. I followed them because I knew a narrow stretch of the river which would bring them closer to me for a photo. when i got there, they were just about entering it and once I stopped they turned around and began swimming backwards. But only for a few minuets before they both took off and flew the narrow bit of the river.
As I continued up the river to catch up with my family There were a number of goosanders that flew past, along the river and in the air.
As I was walking up, I spotted two long-tailed tits flying into a hawthorn tree, where After watching for a bit I spotted a lovely little moss nest hidden in the "V" of a tree. There was an adult in the nest and it was building it as we watched, using moss.
furthur up, just past the linnet scenario there was another colony of sand martins where I could get some more photos.
I caught up with my mum and dad at the bridge and then set off back when I spotted a chaffinch picking smallinsects from the underside of leaves and I thought that that it was worth a photo so I did...
Back at the dipper site the baby dipper had begun to move a bit more and was on an island in the middle of the river at the start of the rapids, looking rather like an adult dipper.
I was just arriving back at the car when a male and female sparrow flew out of the bushes and began to wage war with each other on the path and throwing up a lot of dust. The male eventually left the fight, so I am assuming that the female was the winner.
after lunch My brother and I went for a walk in the river to try and find some crayfish and fish but only the fish could be found. there were no crayfish at all in the river, besides a dead one, so a bit of a dissapointment really in that sense but plenty of birds to make up for it.
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