My mission capturing the White-throated Dipper flying over the water’s surface

I have had one picture in my mind since I started taking picture of the White-throated Dipper and that is to capture them flying.

You know that, if you ever had done any White-throated Dipper photography, it is more or less impossible to catch them flying. The habitat always seem to be too dark and the White-throated Dipper are so agile moving with high-speed just over the surface of the water. The contrast between the bird and the background makes it hard as all cameras want good contrast between the subject and the background to make sure that auto focus work efficiently.

I have always thought that I would get my desired photo of the flying Dipper on a cold winter day when snow make the setting much brighter, but during my flower session on Saturday last weekend I witnessed a great deal of White-throated Dipper activity as they seemed to have hatched some chicks. That meant I only had to find a nice place to position myself after I had located the nest. I saw two possible spots and I tried one of them during my session with the White-throated Dippers on Sunday.

What I got was probably my best session with the White-throated Dipper so far. I had frantic activity with at least one adult coming back to the nest every five or ten minutes giving me many opportunities to try to get the sought after flying shot. I should have brought my tripod and gimbal head as that probably would have helped me with the panning motion, but I am not 100% sure if that would have worked. At times I also had birds sitting just a couple of meters in front of me singing or preening themselves.

I had a great time even if the light was horrible and at last I nailed the flying shots that I wanted. I don´t know how many times they flew past me, but after some time I started to focus on the birds coming back to the nest instead of trying both back and forth. I felt that gave me a better chance of nailing the flying shot and that turned out to be true. Still I see room for improvement and I might go back there an evening next week to also check the status of the Eurasian Beavers as it is close by.

Please enjoy my photo gallery with flying White-throated Dippers.