{"id":6825,"date":"2012-12-10T20:13:36","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T04:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6825"},"modified":"2012-12-10T20:17:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T04:17:14","slug":"dippers-rainbow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6825","title":{"rendered":"Dipper&#8217;s rainbow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I often see dippers in local creeks and along the lakeshore&#8212;for me, the dipper has almost become a yard bird. Yet, in all the time I have watched dippers as they incessantly dived for\u00a0comestibles, I have only occasionally seen any of them meet with success: one time with a grub; another time with a <a title=\"Dipper\u2019s comestible\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=3482\">kokanee\u00a0fish egg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s dipper was much more successful&#8212;it captured the fry of a rainbow trout.<\/p>\n<p>The dipper surfaced with the fry of a distinctly\u00a0disconsolate\u00a0rainbow trout.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6827\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/dipperfry121210as2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1126\" height=\"1126\" \/><\/p>\n<p>However, the story is even more interesting than merely a dipper capturing a fry. The rainbow fry was too big for the dipper to easily swallow. Clasped athwart its bill, the fish had to be rotated so that it would align with the throat and be swallowed whole. But, every time the dipper tried to swing its head to flip the fish into the proper alignment for swallowing, the fish was dropped.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6828\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/dipperfry121210ds.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the fumbled fry landed in the water and the dipper dived for it again.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6830\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/dipperfry121210es.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the fry landed on the rock, from which it was easily retrieved.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6829\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/dipperfry121210cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The dipper failed to swallow the fish during a half-dozen tries. Yet, one really curious aspect of the interaction is seen in the fry&#8217;s caudal\u00a0fin (its tail). The upper part of it is missing. It seems the dipper snipped it during the first encounter as a way of preventing the fish from escaping.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6826\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/dipperfry121210bs2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So, did the dipper ever manage to swallow the fry of the rainbow trout? Alas, I don&#8217;t know; it tired of the game and finally flew off with the fish athwart its bill.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I often see dippers in local creeks and along the lakeshore&#8212;for me, the dipper has almost become a yard bird. Yet, in all the time I have watched dippers as they incessantly dived for\u00a0comestibles, I have only occasionally seen &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6825\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-fish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6825","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=6825"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6836,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6825\/revisions\/6836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}