Derbyshire

Once more with a knack for believing the wrong weather forecast I headed for Derbyshire on what turned out to be another cloudy day. Last year Brian Davis commented on the fact that the water voles at Cromford ..... well, weren't. So I didn't have high hopes, but I knew dull light there was better than in a wooded valley, so I gave it a bash. Wandering along I didn't see anything, but then heard an unmistakable 'plop' behind me. I only saw ripples, but realised a vole must have been on the far bank behind the brambles until the strolling moorhen gave it a fright. Based on past experience I knew it was then just a waiting game, and eventually in one of the canal wall holes a face appeared.
In time it had a swim to a more photogenic spot for a light bite .........
then another swim, and it was gone.
I stayed a while, had another walk and prevaricated a bit too long before heading for Lathkill Dale. The moorhen were in grumpy mood
butterbur was a nice touch (an English first for me)
and on the far bank a small shape flitted from crevice to crevice.


Soon enough I found the purpose of the visit, showing quite well, but not apparently very hungry. This was a problem, because all the birds I saw were bejewelled with brightly coloured bling. Nice to watch, but not so good to snap. When feeding they stand in the water and can hide the rings, but this late afternoon it was just posing and preening.
They looked a bit like cheap wellies in this shot.
Distant shots were marginally less obvious (on this scale at least)
In the end I found that the one with the red ring didn't look too bad if I turned down the red saturation in Lightroom.
Interestingly trying the same with orange on the other bird just led to the bird changing colour too. In fairness the dippers have had a hard time of late apparently, so I guess they do need to try and keep track of them somehow, and colour rings are the easiest way.
So not as successful as I had hoped, and the ISO was cranked up most of the day, but still a cracking part of the world. As ever a few more shots in the web albums.