A Happy Mother's Day

 My Mother's Day request was to drive up Agency Creek Rd. and look for American Dippers at their nest sites. We did and we found them! 

But our first stop was not at a Dipper nest area, but at the old rock quarry where we often find interesting water birds and, once, a Dipper. Johnny spotted a weasel there once, too. This time he found the first ever Belted Kingfisher nest hole that either of us had ever seen. He saw the bird fly straight into it and not come out. We were astounded that it was practically at the top of the cliff. We had no idea Kingfishers would nest that high but I guess it's pretty safe from pretty much everything and the creek for finding food for the nestlings is close. I kept watching and finally the Kingfisher flew out and toward the creek. Of course, too fast for my camera. I have since researched and learned that these amazing birds dig their nest burrows 1-3 feet from the *top* of a bank and the nest tunnel is 3-15 feet deep! If you enlarge the top photo, look for the white splash below the hole that is on right side of the bare section of cliff, just below the greenery... maybe 3 feet from the top of the cliff.

While waiting for the Kingfisher to reappear, I took a photo of rocks reflected in the pond that sits at the foot of that cliff.

But I was impatient to find Dippers so we drove on. Our first Dipper related stop was at The Chutes, which is usually a raging torrent covering a wide shield of rocks this time of year. Only in the driest part of the summer does it become a roiling, narrow chute of water. But now, in this incredibly dry spring, the river is as low as it is normally in August. We found no Dippers there (the nest is a distance downstream but the Dippers often forage at The Chutes.) We did see a lone female Common Merganser in the pond below.

 

 

Next was the first of several bridges where Dippers have nested in the past: the Railroad Bridge (bridge for vehicles but made out of a railroad bridge). A Dipper sat motionless on a rock in the middle of the stream, very close to the bridge. We did not disturb it by hiking down to peer under the bridge. 

Just a half mile upstream is Sharkey's Bridge (I don't know how it came to be called that by the locals). This one appeared to have a lot of older guano spots on rocks near the bridge so I climbed down the bank and peered under the bridge. To my surprise, a Dipper was sitting on the bare underside holding very still. I quickly left.

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 The next site is what I call Singing Rock, because for years I would hear a Dipper singing in that area but could not find it. Finally a couple years ago, Johnny spotted a Dipper flying into a mossy nest in a fern and log shrouded bank. Today, Mother's Day 2021, two parent birds were busily feeding their noisy and demanding children.

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop, Asinine Bridge, so named because it curves the wrong way for the cliff... an engineering error. The mossy nest is quite visible from the road if you know where to look and have a good pair of binoculars as it is well hidden.

 

If you zoom the photo in, you may see the nest in the center of the photo left to right and about one third of the way down from the top.

 

The nest!

 

 

 

 We did not see activity at the nest site but Johnny spotted a Dipper flying upstream.

 

The last nest site is under the last bridge. Paul Sullivan had seen nest building activity here on April 15 and I did find a nest but no birds in view. I did not linger as this pair tends to be the most people-shy. 

A Kingfisher nest hole and Dippers galore. What a great Mother's Day!