The Beatles say that happiness is a warm gun. Far be it for me to contradict the Fab Four, but they are - in fact - wrong. Happiness is diving off down the valley for a few hours between rain showers to spend some time with the dippers.
During a visit from the parents a few weeks ago, and a very rainy walk down the burn, I had spotted a few fledgling dippers that were very confiding. So I headed off through the territories of their skittish neighbours to those lower down the valley.
There was plenty of insect life about, but the highlights were basking small copper butterflies and the wonderfully marked broom moth caterpillars below.
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| Broom Moth Caterpillar |
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| Small Copper |
The trees were full of juvenile birds of all types, but I was intent on getting down the valley and settling in for a while, so I didn't give them much attention. A rough mix of tits and finches, feeding in the birch, hazel and aspen.
Thankfully, one dipper was again at the causeway; however I didn't spot the bird until I was right on top of it, and I was completely unprepared as it appeared not two meters to my left. Emerging from the water, momentarily cloaked in silver.
I was caught, camera out but no settings fixed, stood in the middle of the path with no cover. Time for some ultra slow-mo fiddling with the camera... bringing it up as the bird made its short dives into the water and snapping away as it surfaced. I managed ten minutes with the first bird until I felt my arms and knee getting tired (it'd been doing bizarre yoga-like contortions to get level with the bird and avoid being blocked by the tall grass). I straightened up and headed back toward the bridge, intending to sit and let the birds more nearer if they wished.
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| Above and below every rock was scoured |
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| The bird didn't seem to mind me at all, even when I was cursing my camera and frantically trying to delete images. |
I was sat for around two minutes before the dipper joined me again, resting and preening for a while before disappearing under the tumbling flow, creeping in and out of the overhanging stones. I simply kept my finger on the shutter and let it run.
Then there was a movement to my left. Something dropped into the low branches of a hawthorn before flitting up again. Redstart. I was delighted. I knew they were around in the area, but hadn't expected them so close to the house. I had been re-reading Birds in a Cage over the last month and having one of Buxton's beloved birds appear seemed a little serendipitous. I bought the camera to bear aaaaand... CF card full.
Damn. The images from my trip to Slapton were still on the card. Swiftly I began deleting images, clearing ten, then twenty. Shifting the settings for the new target. I looked up again... no bird.
I turned back to the dipper for a while, watching it work its way around the boulders in the flow, periodically glancing back to the hawthorns... there were movements, mostly a foraging chiffchaff, but the redstart was staying well in. Then it started to spit with rain. Then drizzle. Sod that.
I shifted my bag onto my back and, edging way from the burn to avoid disturbing the feeding dipper, I began to circle around the hawthorn... and flushed the redstart on the far side.
Luckily it crossed to a smaller bush at the edge of the valley bottom. I managed a few quick snaps before it was away into the scrub, only to have a spotted flycatcher flash by moments later. Taking a single shot of this bonus bird I packed the camera into the bag and headed back out of the way of the rain.
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| Juvenile Redstart |
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| Spotted Flycatcher |
