Full of a cold today, I headed out reasoning that I'd be less likely to go down with full blown man-'flu if I distracted myself.

Today's target was the dipper at Wookey Hole.  I've looked fairly locally before but had no luck.  Finding dippers depends a lot on the water flow on the streams and rivers that they frequent and as there hadn't been a lot of rain since the last report at Wookey, I thought I might get lucky.  I got to the car park at Wookey Hole at about 9.30 and was pleased to see that it was nearly empty.  The little stream runs right next to the car park, past the backs of houses and and through a small park.

One reason the place was empty was that it was very overcast so I had to set the camera up at ISO 800 and hope.

I located a solitary dipper about half way down the park. It was initially a bit flighty but it settled on a log and allowed a few shots before making its way slowly upstream again.  I was able to get closer to this dipper than I have to this species in the past, probably because it gets used to people passing by.  I don't know if it lives here all year round but I hope so as a visit in more favourable light would be a real treat.

I thought I'd call at Cheddar reservoir next and see if I could spot the ruddy duck that had been reported during the cold snap.  I did a complete circuit of the pond (which I thought was pretty heroic for someone nursing man-'flu) and managed to stop and chat to a number of birders on the way round.  I hope I haven't passed on the bug!  Two sets reported a pair of ruddy duck  but at opposite ends!  I did the entire lap without spotting one.  On the plus side, I saw at least 10-12 red-crested pochard, 3-4 black-necked grebe, possibly 6 goosander, 4 shoveler, 6 goldeneye, lots of tufties, pochard, mallard, GC grebe, a rather smart crow, a few little grebe and of course many many coot.  There was a rumour that the great northern diver had been seen but if it was there, it eluded me.

The grand finale was unfortunate - 2 people in powered paragliders descended on the reservoir and appeared to deliberately swoop in low over the water behind the main flock of coot.  Of course panic ensued.  This was repeated three times.  Whiilst I'm sure that was a lot of fun for the pilots, it didn't look safe with dinghies also out on the water and the disturbance to the waterbirds was significant.

That proved enough for me today but the forecast is a little better for tomorrow...

Click on the pics below to see them bigger and feel free to leave comments if you wish.