The earliest recollections of my old moorland home in Yorkshire are of rushing mountain torrents, swirling and gurgling round limestone boulders, beneath which I used to tickle the lively little brown trout, and of white-breasted Dippers flitting up and down.
The Water Ouzel, as it is sometimes called, is not at all a sociable bird. It takes possession of some portion of a stream, often limited to a few hundred yards in length, and keeping more or less strictly to it will not allow any intruder of its own species to encroach upon its domain.
In appearance it is by no means unlike a large black Wren with a snowy-white breast and chestnut under parts. It secures its food in the most wonderful manner when the fact is taken into consideration that the bird appears to be no more adapted to the methods it employs than a Song Thrush. Alighting on some stone in the middle of a rapid stream, it deliberately walks down into the water and swims along the bottom by a series of wing-beats, picking up and swallowing as it goes caddis worms, larvæ of flies, and small molluscs. On several occasions I have disturbed young Dippers in the nest when they were ready to fly, and have seen them one by one plunge into a deep, clear pool and progress just as if they were flying slowly and heavily along under water until they came to shore or were compelled to rise to the surface from exhaustion.
The Dipper is a sweet singer, but the listener requires to be very close to the little vocalist before he is in a position thoroughly to appreciate the bird’s low, soft, warbling song, which, although of no great length, is practised even in the middle of winter.
A year or two ago I had occasion to catch an early train in Westmorland, and whilst walking through some rock-strewn pastures to the station came to an old wooden bridge crossing the river Eden. It was close upon Christmas, the air was biting cold, and everything clad in the crystal purity of a heavy hoar frost. Just as I approached the river, day was breaking, and my attention was arrested by a sweet, silvery snatch of song, which I at once recognised as that of the Dipper. I waited on the footbridge until it was light enough to see the bird standing on a moss-clad boulder in the middle of a dark, glassy pool, and shall never forget the beauty of the morning light breaking on the water, the stillness of the scene amidst the lonely hills, nor the sweetness of that exquisite little carol sent out like a flood of joy on the crisp, winter air.
DIPPER AND NEST.
The call note of the species is zit or chit, chit, uttered both when the bird is on the wing and whilst curtseying and dipping in its own quaint way on some stone half submerged in a brawling stream.
The bird builds its nest in all kinds of positions, but never away from flowing water. It may be found in crevices of rock, in holes beneath stone bridges, on large moss-grown boulders in or on the bank of a stream, behind the falling waters of a cascade, and in trees overhanging rivers. It is quite a large structure for the size of the builder, and is made of moss securely woven and felted together on the outside and lined with rootlets, soft dead grass, and leaves placed layer upon layer inside. It is dome-shaped, with the entrance hole placed so low down that the overhanging roof forms a kind of portico which cunningly prevents any stray splash of water from finding its way inside.
The eggs, numbering from four to six, are pure white, and quite unspotted.