Getting straight to the point...... the Dipper chicks are with 99% certainty, dead!

It had rained a little bit off and on all day but by 4 pm it had brightened up. I had always planned to visit late afternoon and early evening. As I walked across the field and reached the river, immediately my heart sank, the water was so high it was lapping at the bottom of the nest. I saw a Dipper nearby so I didn't immediately think that it was a full blown disaster. I quickly concealed myself and then looked properly, there was no entrance hole visible, this was under the water. The majority of the nest was not submerged though. I sat and waited to see if the parents came and it wasn't long before the male arrived with a beak full of food. As you can see, he perched on the nest and tried to find a way in to feed his youngsters. It was a pathetic spectacle as he searched around the nest, all he time with a beak full of food, trying to get in to the nest. I quickly made a decision, I decided to cross the river and planned to open up the top of the nest so that the birds could get in to their chicks. It was either give them that chance or let the chicks perish for certain, if they were not dead already that is. I ran back across the field and down the road to cross by some stepping stones but when I got there the stones were totally submerged as well, I had no way of getting across the river! There was another way, via a bridge quite a way upstream which is what I did. I made my way down the side of the swollen river being careful not to fall in and eventually some 30 minutes later I was at the nest which was just below me. I lowered myself down head first towards the nest, holding on with my left hand and praying not to fall in to the torrent. I poked through the top of the nest and sadly I could feel the stone cold chicks, lifeless and seemingly dead. I removed them one by one, cupped them in my hand and blew on them with my warm breath. Miraculously, after 5 minutes or so there was some tiny movement and they started to come back to life again. I was really heartened by this, with them in my hand I put them in to my arm pit and held them next to my skin, the warmest part of my body. I had them there for 20 minutes trying to bring up their body temperature. However, I needed to get them back in to the nest as soon as I could so I took the decision to put them back in and hope for the best. I tidied up the new entrance hole and retreated back the way I had come. Back at the hide opposite I watched and waited, and prayed. Suddenly the female arrived at the nest, after some investigation she entered through the new entrance and to my utter amazement and joy she seemed to start to brood the chicks. At one point she did some tidying up of the new entrance and later even emerged to catch some food which she took in to the nest. Whether she fed that to the chicks I will never know, were they alive or had they continued to lose body heat again. After quite a while the male returned to the scene with a beak full of food, he tried on several occasions to feed his youngsters, perching on the edge of the nest calling to them loudly but sadly he didn't feed them. I am guessing because they didn't gape for food which was a really bad sign. I am praying that the female was able to brood them enough to get them active again but I will not know the answer to that until the morning. I appreciate that it is almost certainly against the law to take chicks from a nest but my conscience is clear on this. I have been with this family of Dippers for 7 weeks, almost daily and watched them build a nest, watched them incubate and watched them feeding their chicks for the last 7 days. It would have been impossible to sit and watch them perish without trying to help. Perhaps I should have let nature take its course? But I didn't, I did what I think is right. However, the chicks have almost certainly died in the nest. The parents were unable to brood the chicks or feed them for several hours. There is a very small chance that my intervention may have saved them but I am not hopeful. If they have survived it will be an absolute miracle.