I think I might have told this Dipper story here before, but since it's this
week's bird, I figure it's OK to repeat myself:

I don't recall the name of the lake, but it's a popular fishing spot just on
the Anacortes side of Deception Pass. Gary Bletsch and I had stopped to
look for ducks and were delighted to see a couple of Dippers. There was a
fisherman there asking us about the birds, and we were explaining Dippers to
him, including a bit about their feeding behavior, when it occurred to us
that we didn't really know whether or not Dippers caught small fish. One of
them very cooperatively answered us by popping up with a minnow in his beak.

That same pair also showed off a little dominance behavior. They were
scrapping a bit, and one got the other by the scruff of the neck and held it
underwater! It held it there for several seconds, and we were wondering
whether we had an avicide in progress, when the bully pulled up and let the
other one go. I imagine that from a practical perspective it would be
pretty tricky for one bird to drown another without being drowned itself,
but I think this was probably more a matter of establishing who was boss...

Jim McCoy
Marblehead, MA
jfmccoy at hotmail.com