The curse of the green leaf…

When I was down at the local river, during my attempts at getting some long exposure images, I saw quite a lot of dippers. Having not had the chance to photograph them, I headed back a few weeks later with my long lens, in the hopes that, this time I would come home with some images.

I was keeping my eyes peeled as I walked down the river looking for dippers or some poop covered rocks which is a good sign that the area is being frequented by them. I didn’t have to go far to get my first sighting of a dipper washing in the shallow pools among the bedrock on the opposite side of the river.

I managed to find a spot where I could get down to the riverside, by which time the dipper had moved down river a bit, but I could still see – just. There was a lot of leaf cover here, but I managed to get a record shot of it, with a lovely green tinge from the leaves which will prove to be the start of an issue I had all day.

As my viewpoint here was not exactly clear, I headed back up to the trail to find a better spot. I saw the dipper move on in that time, but I thought that this area would be a good point to start as they were obviously in the area. I managed to find a trail back down to the river a little further down from where I just was. In hindsight, I think that while this was a nice area to sit and the dippers were obviously here, it wasn’t the best as there were no rapids that the dippers would usually hunt in.

I got myself set up and camo’d up – I had seen one of Simon Eardley’s YouTube videos, and he was using some 3D camo to help disguise himself, the set that I have doesn’t have a face covering, so as he is only about 20 minutes from me, I popped over in the week and purchased a 3D camo hood and camera sleeve, and a bit of scrim netting that I could tie around my tripod to help everything to blend in a bit more.

It was quite quiet to start with, though there was a grey wagtail across the river, that wasn’t bothered by my presence which was a good sign that my purchases were working.

A kingfisher flashed past like a fluorescent bullet, and a little while later came back down past me, and while I don’t think it saw me, or if it did, it wasn’t bothered, it kept on it’s merry way and didn’t stop off for a photo opportunity.

Eventually, a dipper did come in, however, it was rather distant, and the lurking green leaves of a nearby sycamore scuppered a clear view, with a bit of work in lightroom, I did manage to get a nice environmental image, before the dipper moved on. It was then back to waiting and hoping something would come in.

My next visitor was a goosander, which was a first for me! This female, swam right past me, before heading up to the more turbulent water up river of me.

Just as she moved off, a Grey Heron then came into view up at the rapids! Unfortunately, this image suffered quite significantly, from the green tinge of the leaves that were just popping into view, and as much as I tried, I was unable to get rid of the green and softness it brought into this side of the image.

Once the heron had moved off, and I knew the coast was clear, I was able to get up and remove said offending leaf, but unfortunately for me, there were no more visitors.

In all I was here for 5 hours, and while I didn’t get the close encounter I was looking for, I did get a nice environmental image of that dipper and a reason to go back and try again. While it is always the dream to get those killer images, for me, if I know I have tried my best then that’s all I really can do and the rest is up to nature, and it also gives me a reason to go back and try again.