Hats off to the big dipper

It was a blustery day with short squalls of rain blowing in on the wind. A typical April day that happened to be occurring in May. Looking for a change of scenery, I crossed the county border and drove into the Wicklow mountains. I parked and walked up along the tumbling headwaters of the River Liffey.

A bird appeared suddenly, flying low along the river and jinking round each bend. A roundish sort of bird with wings beating incredibly fast, it looked like an enormous bumble bee or a giant wren. It was, of course, a dipper.

Dippers are uncommon rather than rare and are confined to shallow, fast-flowing rivers and streams with gravelly beds. They are also one of the most extraordinary birds in Ireland. By some quirk of evolution a typical perching bird, midway in size between a robin and a blackbird, has adapted to life under water. Dippers get most of their food by jumping into the streams where they live and moving around by a combination of running along the stream bed and ‘flying’ under water until they run out of breath. Their main quarry is the aquatic larvae of flying insects, though they will also eat things like snails, freshwater shrimps and very small fish.