Dipper - 1894

WATER OUZEL, or DIPPER, Cinclus aquaticus

A common resident, to be met by every stream.

The Dipper is one of the few birds that do not migrate, remaining faithful to his familiar stream throughout the year. Nor does he appear to be put out by the weather, however severe it may be. In one of the coldest days of the very hard frost in the winter of 1880 we were watching for wild duck by the Cleddy below Stone Hall, with our beard and moustache a mass of icicles, when we heard a soft and pleasing bird's song evidently coming near to us, and looking in the direction from whence it proceeded were astonished to see a Dipper perched on a block of ice that was floating down mid-stream singing away as if he were in the height of enjoyment! Indeed, we must say that it has been under such surroundings that we have most often heard this Mark Tapley of a bird indulging in song. We often had the pleasure of being visited by Water Ouzels at Stone Hall, a little brook running through our grounds to feed our various ponds being the attraction.

Mathew M.A. 1894, Birds of Pembrokeshire and it's Islands