Paul Hackett
Well-known member
Due to the weather i decided to stay local today, and seeing as i had a small group of waxwings in stockport town centre less than a mile away i decided to start there first, when i arrived there were already six birds in the adjacent trees to the small rowans, but people, cars, taxis and buses were contributing to disturbing the birds so they alighted for a minute or so then were regularly moved on, i heard two more birds fly into the group then a short time later another two and then a single bird making 11 birds, and then joined by a single redwing, the local magpies kept flying into the flock breaking them up and they would fly to the adjacent post office building to drink water, the weather was not at it best and i managed a couple of shots, eventually the birds flew off late morning but returned in the afternoon with another 2 members ! (see attached pic taken in the rain)
The sun started to shine so i remembered that my friend Cliff had good numbers of Dippers on his patch on the River Goyt in New Mills Derbyshire, so i drove up there, i saw dippers straight away but the light had detoriated again to take any pictures, so i walked along the new millenium walkway, and saw another dipper but with the dog walkers in good numners the bird quickly flew off, by now i was thinking there was no hope to get some good shots, but i walked further up the river to an opening with a ruined building and some descending steps next to a water fall, just above the water fall were some stones and on one of the stones very close to the bank was a dipper !
I started to move closer to the bird and was able to walk down a set of walled steps adjacent to the river, this allowed me to get closer to the bird but also to be on the same line of view/level as the bird and not looking down on it, the light lifted and i managed a couple of shots before the light went again. (see attached pic)
The sun started to shine so i remembered that my friend Cliff had good numbers of Dippers on his patch on the River Goyt in New Mills Derbyshire, so i drove up there, i saw dippers straight away but the light had detoriated again to take any pictures, so i walked along the new millenium walkway, and saw another dipper but with the dog walkers in good numners the bird quickly flew off, by now i was thinking there was no hope to get some good shots, but i walked further up the river to an opening with a ruined building and some descending steps next to a water fall, just above the water fall were some stones and on one of the stones very close to the bank was a dipper !
I started to move closer to the bird and was able to walk down a set of walled steps adjacent to the river, this allowed me to get closer to the bird but also to be on the same line of view/level as the bird and not looking down on it, the light lifted and i managed a couple of shots before the light went again. (see attached pic)
