- The ouzel seemed to enjoy with the aeatics the feel of the 
‘icy water about its toes as it splashed through its special 
pool, stopping long enough to investigate a hob-nailed boot 
upon the bank. 
| Wherever the wild fresh waters play west of the Rocky 
Mountains, north of Mexico, such an observer may eatch 
_ glimpses of a leaden-gray feathered creature about the size 
of an Oregon towhee, but with a short tipped-up tail anda 
very chunky body. If the bird is alone and has a habit of 
dipping its body, somewhat in the fashion of a winter wren, 
while it winks its white third eyelid at you, enter Water 
Ouzel, or American Dipper, in your notebook. This: hermit 
may appear through the spray of the falls at Lake Whatcom, 
or slip away from a mossy dome-shaped nest near the — 
dripping outlet of a glacier; yet, in either case, its fasci- — 
nating ways will lure the watcher on, until he may even hear © 
the tinkling, chuckling, warbling song it has been taught 
by the dashing torrents. _ _ 
| - Yosemite knows this bird, as does the turbulent Skagit 
River, and many other dashing, foaming, struggling streams 
of the Olympics or the Cascades. Still, it has been seen 
picking its way up over the waterfalls within the city limits 
of Spokane prying its living of caddice fly larvae from the 
_ glippery rocks of a surging river. Nowhere, however, does 
it seem to be more at home than on the slopes of Mt. Rainier. 
There this bird lover recalled that on one never-to-be- 
forgotten day a bird was seen near a summer hotel on | 
Lake Cresent in the Olympics, bobbing up and down on a © 
‘small boulder splashed with bubbles in a rushing, shallow 
brook. She remembered that when a second bird flew by 
knocking the first one into the water, the hidden watcher — 
gasped, for she thought she was beholding another bird 
tragedy, but—no. In an instant the long toenails and 
strong legs of the victim helped it to clamber back to its 
first position, from which it was pushed again and again 
by the flying bird. Each time it climbed out of the water 
128 
