Dipper #76

A much better day than expected. No rain until the  middle of the afternoon and some sunshine and blue skies in the morning. 
We took a walk around RSPB Coombes Valley which, whilst very pleasant (apart from all the up and down bits - you’d think we’d have realised this beforehand with ‘valley’ being in the name) was very short on birds. In fact we only saw one grey wagtail and heard a few blue tits, so it was a bit disappointing. 
After lunch we thought we chance a quick walk to Dovedale even though it had clouded over considerably. We were in luck - we only got a few sprinkles on the way back and we got to see one of my favourite birds - the dipper. They are lovely little birds, bobbing up and down and swimming underwater to feed on invertebrates. The two we saw were very confiding and you could get reasonably close to them. We enjoyed watching them for quite a while. Also on our walk we saw a sparrowhawk and lots of corvids. 

After returning home, my husband cooked us a lovely roast ham dinner and we finished off the day with freshly baked scones with jam and cream - what a treat!