Dipper
When: All year round
Scientific name: Cinclus cinclus
Gaelic/Scottish names: Gobhlachan-uisge; lon-uisge/Burnbecker; water meggie
Size: Length 18cm
Where: Rivers and burns around the Inner Forth, such as the Bluther Burn through Valleyfield Woodland Park, the Devon near Cambus, and the Black Devon, near Alloa.
If you are walking along the side of a small river or burn you may be lucky enough see a dipper – or at least catch a flash of its spray-white bib as it zips upstream on its stubby, sooty-black wings. Between a robin and a blackbird in size, these jaunty little birds are completely at home in the water. They often make their dome-shaped nests behind waterfalls or weirs, forcing their chicks to brave the pounding water to make their first flights.
Few birds are as well named as the dipper. You will see them bobbing on the rocks in mid-stream like curtseying Victorian housemaids. Stay and watch and you may be rewarded by the sight of one walking straight down into the water to feed on the river bed, hunting for a juicy caddis fly larva or water snail.
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