COVER STORY: SOFTBILLS
ADIPPER has two-tone camouflage. Its white throat and breast resemble the reflected light from fastflowing water, whereas its dark plumage looks similar to the half-submerged stones on which it stands and curtseys. It blinks 40 or 50 times every minute: a vivid flash produced by the white feathers on the upper and lower eyelids.
Unlike wagtails and other birds that frequent rivers and other fast-flowing waterways, dippers are genuinely aquatic. They are the only aquatic songbirds, even more adapted to their water environment than kingfishers.
The white throated-dipper (), which occurs in fragmented areas of Europe, Asia and Africa, has been known in Britain as the water ouzel, water thrush and river pie. At one time, it was thought to be a barrel-chested relative of the wren, although DNA analysis has revealed that it is more
