A complementary Ouzel

On Sunday’s walk, I had hoped to see a dipper on the Water of Leith and towards the end, I spotted one. It’s a bird I don’t see very often but always look for on watercourses – the bouncing curtsey it makes, and the contrast of the brilliant white bib against the milk and dark chocolatey brown feathers, and the fact that it sings in winter, always makes it heartwarming to see. So, I’ve been delighted to find out that John Muir wrote a whole chapter in ‘The Mountains of California’ about the Stateside cousin of our dipper – the American Dipper or Water Ouzel. He writes: “He is a singularly joyous and lovable little fellow. In form he is about as smoothly plump and compact as a pebble that has been whirled in a pot-hole, the flowing contour of his body being interrupted only by his strong feet and bill, the crisp wing-tips, and the up-slanted wren-like tail. If disturbed while dipping about in the margin shallows, he either sets off with a rapid whir to some other feeding-ground up or down the stream, or alights on some half-submerged rock or snag out in the current, and immediately begins to nod and curtsey, turning his head from side to side with many other odd dainty movements that never fail to fix the attention of the observer. He is the mountain streams' own darling, the humming-bird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows. Among all the mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings - none so unfailingly. For both in winter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love, requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which he dwells. While water sings, so must he, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning his voice in sure accord; low in the drought of summer and the drought of winter, but never silent. Find a fall, or cascade, or rushing rapid, anywhere upon a clear stream, and there you will surely find its complementary Ouzel, flitting about in the spray, diving in foaming eddies, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells; ever vigorous and enthusiastic, yet self-contained, and neither seeking nor shunning your company. Such, then, is our little cinclus, beloved of every one who is so fortunate as to know him.”