Dipper with ice-encased feet
The dipper, aka, water ouzel, is a small aquatic songbird that makes year-round living diving into fast-running water to retrieve tiny invertebrates for food. Its story is remarkable in so many ways: that there are nutritious organisms available to it in freezing water; that it can plunge into freezing water and reliably come up with food; that it sings - beautifully - all year long; that although ice forms on its feet and legs, it seems impervious to very very cold conditions. The dipper is endlessly fascinating, and entertaining to watch.
"[H]is music is that of the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills of the rapids, the gurgling of margin eddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil ponds." —John Muir, 1894
Photo taken at the confluence of Soda Butte Creek and the Lamar River, Yellowstone National Park.
Dipper with ice-encased feet
The dipper, aka, water ouzel, is a small aquatic songbird that makes year-round living diving into fast-running water to retrieve tiny invertebrates for food. Its story is remarkable in so many ways: that there are nutritious organisms available to it in freezing water; that it can plunge into freezing water and reliably come up with food; that it sings - beautifully - all year long; that although ice forms on its feet and legs, it seems impervious to very very cold conditions. The dipper is endlessly fascinating, and entertaining to watch.
"[H]is music is that of the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills of the rapids, the gurgling of margin eddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil ponds." —John Muir, 1894
Photo taken at the confluence of Soda Butte Creek and the Lamar River, Yellowstone National Park.