Baby Dipper shouting at parent for food

I took the car to have an MOT test first thing this morning, but didn't have an exact appointment.  The garage said they would get it done as soon as possible, and certainly by 1pm, so I left it there and walked to the nearby river Frome which close to the centre of Stroud.  The river flows under the railway viaduct at the former site of Capel's Mill and it then cuts down between two steep banks called 'Frome Banks'.  Recently this was put into the care of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust for them to maintain it as a nature reserve.

I have blipped there a lot as there are so many beautiful scenes to show.  I love the tumbling river which at this time of year is just beginning to become a quieter stream after winter's floods.  Today I approached the banks from a different direction, scrambling down the steep side half way along its course rather than along the footpath from either end.

I immediately saw a pair of dippers flying upstream past me  and wondered whether the kingfisher would be around.  Standing quietly by a tree I looked  under the tree canopy upstream and spotted a kingfisher perched about a foot above the water on a small tree branch, with something in its mouth. I brought my zoom up to focus on it and as I did so, I saw a separate flash of the brilliant blue back of another kingfisher flying away from its partner further upstream.  Then I noticed a woman was walking towards me along the river bank with a big dog, and this had disturbed the birds.

I had plenty of time so slowly walked up river towards the old mill site under the viaduct where the kingfishers nest.  Once there I chose a sheltered spot beside the river and watched and listened, enjoying the noisy peace of a lovely river scene.

I saw some more dippers flying around, flitting from rock to rock, and then onto branches at the water's edge.  They find food under water and I then realised that one of the dippers was a baby and was relying on its parent to bring it food.  It could just about fly and kept flapping its wings continuously.  Several times it waited with its mouth wide open and the parent pushed its own beak down the young ones throat and regurgitated some food.  But after a while this scene occurred, where the parent refused to give it food, possibly trying to get it to go into the water to forage for itself.  I think there are several pairs of dippers as i saw another one fly up to the nest with food in its mouth, possibly for a different brood.

I saw two pied wagtails dancing in the air together over some other nearby rocks in the middle of the river.  A jay flew into a tree at the top of the bank and I filmed it flitting between trees and their branches.  Wrens and blackbirds, pigeons and blue tits all kept crossing the river and I realised that their patch was higher up the banks, whereas the kingfishers, wagtails and dippers all depended on the waterside for their habitat and food.

Just before I was preparing to leave, the kingfisher finally appeared on the branch below its nest with a small minnow in its mouth.  After a short wait it flew up and into the hole in the bank and reappeared quickly and then flew away back downstream.  I have added a picture of it as an 'Extra photo' to add a bit of brilliant colour to today's blip.  Then I walked off to pick up my car which had passed the test with no problem.  I'd had a lovely morning for which I am very grateful, all within a few hundred yards of the centre of town.