THE DIPPER 261 



for tliey are among the first of the hill birds to make their 

 nests. In March I have watched a pair of Dippers carry- 

 ing green moss to their dome-shaped nest, but this was 

 in a sheltered situation, and some of those birds, having 

 their home among the high hills, do not commence to 

 brood till the beginning of May. 



During the early days of June, when big fields of snow 

 still lingered in the great corries above, I saw a Water 

 Ouzel with its bill full of food flying quickly up a hill 

 burn, to where it rushed down the steep hillsides in a series 

 of waterfalls, brilliantly white in the strong rays of the 

 sun. With a little difficulty I found the nest. For a 

 Dipper's it was remarkably small, and was built on a 

 narrow ledge of rock drenched with spray from the fall 

 above. The nest contained a brood of half -grown young, 

 which allowed the parent birds little leisure time to them- 

 selves. The nesting site was situated about 2000 feet above 

 sea-level, and away down in the big glen beneath lay a 

 deep loch, the source of a broad hill stream. It was here 

 that the Dippers obtained most of the food for their young, 

 making many excursions up the steep rise of a couple 

 of hundred feet which lay between the loch and the 

 nesting site. 



There are few objects which harmonise more closely 

 with their surroundings than the nest of the Water Ouzel. 

 Indeed, even after the exact spot has been pointed out 

 there is sometimes difficulty in realising that the large, 

 rounded growth of moss is indeed the home of a family of 

 young birds. Sometimes the nest is placed only a foot or 

 so above the usual water level, and then disaster overtakes 

 it should a day's rain bring down the burn in spate, but 

 these catastrophes occur in reality less frequently than 

 might be supposed. Nesting sites of the Dipper are various. 

 Often the nest is made in some rock behind a waterfall, 

 where the birds have actually to fly through the water in 



