At Last - a Dipper

Until recently there was a rather tatty interpretative board in Golspie Glen which showed some of the wildlife that could be seen, and one of those pictured was a dipper. For two years we've looked out for one without success and had concluded that there weren't any - until today when, crossing the footbridge over the Golspie Burn below our house, we spotted one.

Dippers are one of those birds which I feel are quite special. The first I ever saw was on our first visit to Ardnamurchan in, I think, 1995, when we were driving over from Inverness in a hired Discovery and stopped just off the A82 by the side of a river for a break. Later, when we lived in Kilchoan, I used to see them regularly at the mouth of the Millburn where it entered Kilchoan Bay.

They're great indicators of the health of a waterway. They're special too in the way they 'swim' in rushing rivers and burns to hunt for crustaceans and other invertebrates amongst the rocks. They're shy birds, best spotted, as happened today, when they fly low and fast along a stream, though they are easily confused with a blackbird.