Crepuscular warbling

Dipper singing outside our cottage early in the morning

Not from precocious carol singers but the dawn and dusk song of a Dipper (Cinclus cinclus) advertising its winter territory along the tumbling stream that flows through our garden. Named for their characteristic bobbing curtsy, Dippers are extraordinarily well adapted to life in their watery world, immersing themselves fully in fast-flowing currents in search of the aquatic invertebrates on which they feed. Local names here in the south west include 'Water Colly' (Somerset) and 'Water Thrush' (Cornwall), while the quaintly bucolic 'Bessie Ducker', which sounds like the name of a doomed chamber maid from one of Agatha Christie's rambling country houses, hails from Yorkshire.

For some years, Dipper song – a loud, varied and irrepressibly cheerful jumble of notes – has been a daily fixture from mid-autumn to early spring and all the more welcome at a time of year when few other birds are singing. Unusually, both male and female Dippers sing but as their plumages are alike, it can be suprisingly difficult to distinguish courtship between the sexes from territorial agression between two males. We fixed nestboxes underneath the bridges in our garden, and though we think these are used as overnight roost sites in winter, they have not been used for nesting (yet!), though a pair successfully used a natural site a couple of years ago just upstream from our greenhouse. For more information about Dippers, including an example of their song (and better pictures!) visit http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/d/dipper/index.aspx