Joan Bloomer

We are really enjoying this year's format. I have a query. We watched a dipper repeatedly peck material from a boulder in mid stream, dip it in water and then eat it or dispose of it in the water we could not be sure which. When it flew away we examined the rock. We saw white traces of droppings from a nest on the underside of a wooden bridge about 3m above the water. Your Wednesday programme offered two possibilities: the importance of feathers in the diet to provide calcium, made more palatable by dipping. Or the removal of droppings necessitated by a drop in water levels. But would the dipper ever site a nest under a high bridge?