This is a picture taken in the gloom of today's winter morning showing the far side of the ford that crosses the Golspie Burn below our house and part of the retaining wall which supports the footbridge which we use to cross it. You may have to hunt for it but, not twenty metres from where we stood in the middle of the bridge there is....
....a dipper, a bird about the size of a blackbird which specialises in hunting underwater for its prey of larvae and other small aquatic invertebrates, which is one reason why....
....it's so difficult to spot.
This one worked its way nearer and nearer to us, giving me every opportunity to take some superb pictures; but the wall was in deep shadow and, however much I adjusted the settings on the camera, I simply could not get a good picture.
The pictures really don't matter. What does is that we have seen a bird which we last spotted back in September, a relatively rare bird - it's on the recent 'Birds of Conservation Concern - 5' in the Amber category - whose welcome presence indicates that the water of the burn is clean.
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