American Dipper

(Cinclus mexicanus)

The American Dipper is North America’s only aquatic songbird! We started running into these guys in western Canada on our American Safari and when I first spotted one I said “look at that funny bird doing a dance in the creek!” What I was seeing was the characteristic bobbing motion of the American Dipper. It finds all its food in fast-moving rocky streams by dipping its head underwater, hence the name Dipper! They can even walk on the stream bottom and swim! This is downright weird for a songbird.

In order to survive their cold-water lifestyle they have an unusually low metabolic rate and a higher oxygen capacity in their blood!

Photographed next to the Thornton Creek Fish Hatchery, Ucluelet, Vancouver Island. British Columbia, Canada.