One of the delights of #Stroud, a busy market town in Gloucestershire, England, is the River Frome flowing through a beautiful wooded valley only a few minutes walk from the town centre. Every spring, dippers breed near the wooden footbridge at Capel's Mill, so my cycle to work usually involves pausing on the bridge for a bit of bird-watching. On this occasion I had my 'can o'beans' video camera with me but it is not unusual to see several bird-photographers with massive lenses jostling for the best shot on the remains of the mill stonework.
The dipper Cincus cincus is a bird normally associated with mountain and moorland streams, so having them breeding in town is quite a surprise (and convenient for photographers). The name comes not from the fact that they take a dip in water to feed but from the constant dipping action that they seem unable to stop doing even when preening on one leg!
The species is on the Amber List - birds of conservation concern in Britain https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/dipper/ with between 6,000 and 18,000 pairs in the UK.
This video to #BrightenYourDay is No.59 in the series to help connect you to #nature during the #Covid19 #pandemic.