AWAKE IN THE WINTER
Rex Burress
On November 22 an American Dipper was reported hanging out in Putah Creek near the Monticello Dam in Yolo county. No, that wasn't a skinny dipper person, but rather a bird!
I retrieved my prized, Peterson Field Guide of Western Birds to review the data. (Signed by Roger Tory Peterson after I had a lengthy conversation with the bird artist master in 1990). The aquatic bird is seldom seen in the valley, preferring mountain streams where it plies a living from the rapids, although I did see one in the Feather River at Oroville once in the swift current near the Fish Hatchery. Take note, Snow Goose Festival bird-watchers this month, January 25-29!
Designated scientifically as Cinclus mexicanus, the Dipper gets its common name from the habit of bobbing its head up and down, although some might say it's because of dipping into the water to search for aquatic food. Although found widely in mountainous places, it is the only genera and species of its kind in North America. There are five species in EuroAsia.
Overall, the dipper is one of those resident animals that does not migrate but rather maintains its presence in its chosen habitat, be it in frigid torrents among icy boulders throughout the heights. Most remarkably, amid the perilous rapids, it bursts forth with cheery song even in storm!
John Muir wrote a very expressive essay about his favorite bird that he called the Water Ouzel, entitled “The Hummingbird of the California Water Falls” for Scribners Monthly magazine in 1878. Muir described it as “a singularly joyous and lovable little fellow as smoothly plump as a pebble whirled in a pothole...in winter he sings, requiring no other inspiration than the singing stream on which he dwells...singing on through all the seasons.”
I watched the dippers constantly when I would be at Oakland summer camp along Spanish Creek near Quincy, CA. There was a “Pause Place” that nature interpreter Paul Covel made popular during his tenure as Camp Naturalist. It was such a joy to lean back against the Ponderosa Pine and ponder the dipper as it landed on a sloping boulder, sing a few “mockingbird notes,” and then go underwater to glean the stream bottom. It would emerge and promptly continue its song, as if giving homage to its ability to surface alive.
Once it waded out onto a beach where a spotted sandpiper was poking the shallows, and there commenced a bobbing session, as both bird species bob their heads up and down, as if wound on a wire and unable to do otherwise! It was as if they were agreeing and disagreeing in some kind of communication ritual.
Another picturesque canyon stream where dippers live is in the Yellow Creek gorge that joins the Feather River near Belden. Very rugged with a treacherous trail running alongside the swift current, dippers dash and dance amid the deathly rocks and rapids as if they were having the time of their lives!
The wild habitat of Yellow Creek, named either because of the autumn yellow of maples, or from the rich deposit of gold in the gravels, is home to lush foliage and wildlife. Live oaks hang out from the cliff-sides as if trying to reach for more of the noonday sun that shafts through the pass for a few minutes, especially in the winter.
Once I saw a mink exploring the stream's edge, weaving in and out of the autumn-colorful Indian Rhubarb, and even the dipper stopped singing and watched the savage intruder. Water is the element for dipper and mink. Will the hummer of the rapids find a safe place to sleep from the mink's shared domain ? We can give recognition to both for being year-round residents.
“Find rushing rapids and you will likely find the ouzel, flitting around in the spray, ever vigorous and enthusiastic, yet self-contained and confident...Among Sierra birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings, for none sings so cheerily whether in winter or summer...One might fancy they come directly from the water like flowers from the ground.” --John Muir