THE DIPPER OR WATER OUZEL 



CINCLUS BRITANNICUS 



GoBHA-DUBH, GoBHA-uiSGE, Feannag-tjisge [Gaelic). Local 

 names : — Water Cuow, Water Piet, Kingfisher. 



Far up the hill burns which run concealed, maybe, till 

 after midsummer's day, beneath the snow tunnels they 

 have fashioned for themselves during the winter months, 

 the Water Ouzel makes its home. 



But it is not along the hill burns alone that the Dipper 

 is to be found. Every Highland river — the Spey, the Dee, 

 the Tay, to name only a few at random — harbours many 

 Water Ouzels, but when the flat lowland country is reached 

 one may look in vain for this cheery water spirit, which 

 seems to spend quite the half of its life in the depths of 

 these dark pools and swift flowing shallows which make 

 up our Scottish waters. 



One should owe a debt of thankfulness to the Dipper 

 if only for the fact that he is one of the few, the very few, 

 of our birds to utter his song during the dead of winter, 

 and how melodious his song is those who have listened 

 to it can testify, though one comes across many to whom 

 it is a thing unknown. When the burns are held by the 

 frost, and when the rivers are well-nigh choked by float- 

 ing ice, the Dippers migrate seawards, and one sees many 

 congregated near the estuaries of the larger streams, where 

 they are actively engaged in searching for food in water 

 itself almost touching the freezing-point. But in early 

 spring, at the first slackening of the frost, the Water 

 Ouzels betake themselves to their upland nesting haunts, 



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