{"id":15924,"date":"2015-12-22T07:50:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T15:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=15924"},"modified":"2015-12-22T14:53:15","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T22:53:15","slug":"picky-dippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=15924","title":{"rendered":"Picky dippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I have watched a number of\u00a0feasting animals\u00a0— birds, bears, coyotes, deer, wasps, spiders — and at no time have the words, picky eater, sprung\u00a0to mind. That is, with one exception: a dipper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An uncommon bird of western North America, the American Dipper can sometimes be found hunting in clear, fast-moving mountain streams. Fortunately, I live near a creek where there is often a concentration\u00a0of dippers (eight seen last Saturday), so I get to watch its\u00a0behaviour. This easy access to the bird has enabled me to write an article for the BC Field Ornithologists about the way dippers handle surface and anchor ice in cold weather:\u00a0dippers and ice<\/a>. I have even watched it\u00a0tending its chicks<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The dipper is an unusual songbird. It flies underwater<\/a> to\u00a0capture\u00a0aquatic larva<\/a> and fish eggs<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0the creek bed. Occasionally it will even\u00a0capture fry<\/a>\u00a0swimming within the stream. \u00a0About a year ago, I was watching a dipper collect kokanee eggs from the creek bed and was struck by the fact that it would retrieve a group of them, but would then place them on a surface so it could eat them one at a time<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This time, I was struck by the dipper’s behaviour where it would retrieve a clutch of kokanee eggs, but not swallow them upon bringing them to the surface. Rather, it would pause and examine them.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

As before, it would first place them on a surface.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

It then tried to pick them up one at a time, but unfortunately they were clumped together. So it tried to separate the eggs by twisting and shaking its head. Why it had to eat them individually rather than all at once is unclear. But, having failed to separate them, it then put them down on the rock again.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Oh well, it is time to start all over again. It stuck its head back in the water and this time seems to have grabbed a grub. Food must be plentiful for it to afford to be so picky.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I have watched a number of\u00a0feasting animals\u00a0— birds, bears, coyotes, deer, wasps, spiders — and at no time have the words, picky eater, sprung\u00a0to mind. That is, with one exception: a dipper.\u00a0 An uncommon bird of western North America, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15924"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15960,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15924\/revisions\/15960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}