November 1, 2007

RIVER WATCHER

DIPPER IN THE FALLS

Rex Burress

What a welcome surprise to see the Dipper in the

outlet falls gushing from the Oroville Fish

Hatchery!

A miniature mountain cascade is created by the

river-water routed through the hatchery and back

into the river just below the holding pond

facilities, and the rapid-loving Water Ouzel, or

American Dipper bird, had found that flow and was

feeding there in its home-like waterfall

environment.

Normally, you will find these quaint gray, stubby

little water birds farther upstream in places

like Yellow Creek that gushes through the rocky

gorge/channel into the North Fork of the Feather

River, as well as all through the Sierra canyon

streams. There they practice their art of playing

"dare" with foaming rapids, dashing undaunted

into the fiercest flows to feed on aquatic life

clinging to the gravels.

Challenging raging rapids is the lifestyle the

dipper has adopted, or was designed for, and

there it remains even unto the rigors of winter,

somehow finding sufficient shelter and food to

flourish. Their flight is sluggish as they

flutter from rock to rock, although once fully

air-bourne, they can dash away rapidly. They so

love the rapids that they build their nests

behind waterfalls where few predators have the

nerve to go.

In the face of a perilous existence, they are

continually singing! As if unable to contain

their joy of being wild and free in the

mountains, they bubble forth a pleasant little

burst of song before they plunge into the pools.

They were John Muirπs favorite birds, and one of

Johnπs first essays was written on "The

Hummingbird of the Mountains." Hummingbird

referred to the ouzelπs singing. He called it

ouzel, or "water thrush," in his graphic

description of Cinclus mexicanus. "Dipper" is

designated due to the birdπs peculiar habit of

dipping its body up and down as if doing some

kind of exercise...or is it a bowing to its Maker

in a gesture of appreciation for life and its

fascinating abilities?

The dipper I saw at the Fish Hatchery Falls

typically plied the puddles between rocks, but

seemed irresistibly drawn to the most fierce flow

as the water thundered out of the outlet pipe.

Perhaps it found music in that wild torrent, as

well as particles of food torn from the slippery

anchorage.

John Muir said, "No Sierra canyon is too cold for

this little bird, none too lonely, provided it be

rich with falling water...it lands on some

half-submerged rock or snag out in the current

and immediately begins to nod and curtsy like a

wren, turning his head from side to side...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."

"In a general way his music is that of the

streams refined and spiritualized. The deep

booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills

of rapids...and the sweet tinkle of separate

drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling

into tranquil pools...Ouzels seems so completely

part and parcel of the streams they inhabit, they

scarce suggest any other origin than the streams

themselves; and one might almost be pardoned in

fancying they come direct from the living waters,

like flowers from the ground."

"The ouzel...interprets all that we in our

unbelief call terrible in the utterances of

torrents and storms, as only varied expressions of Godπs eternal love."

≠John Muir