Wednesday 4 November 2015

The Blink of the Dipper

Ormsaigmore's shingle beach, just to the east of the Ferry Stores, runs from the road to....

....the mouth of the Millburn, and it's a good place to see dippers.

The Raptor will say that he knows lots of places where the shy dipper can be found on West Ardnamurchan, but this is the only place I have seen them, and then only rarely.

Yesterday was one of those rare days, and the dipper I saw was unusually co-operative, allowing me surpringly close to take his/her photograph.

They're unusual birds, being the only songbird that is quite at home underwater, though the species has had to make several major adaptations in order to achieve this. These are very well described at the Birdwords site.

One of the features which doesn't seem to be related to its underwater mode of life, and something that I had never observed before, is that the dipper....

....wears white eye shadow.

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