Dippers | Cinclidae

Waterspreeuwen | Mirlos acuáticos

These are the only songbirds that feed under water. In fast streams they walk upstream along the bottom, turn over pebbles and pick caddisfly, mayfly and stonefly larvae from their undersides; in deeper water they row with the wings. The head is held angled into the current, which presses the bird down onto the bed, while the claws grip the gravel. The body is stocky and short-tailed, the plumage dense and kept waterproof with oil from an unusually large preen gland; the nostrils close with a flap and a nictitating membrane slides across the eye under water. On a boulder in midstream the bird bobs continuously in deep knee-bends and blinks with white eyelids. The nest is a large ball of moss with a low entrance at the front, on a ledge above the water, under a bridge or behind a waterfall where the spray drifts over it. The song is loud, sustained and pitched high enough to carry over the roar of the water, and is heard in midwinter too, along the fixed stretch of stream that is held all year.