The white-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus), also known as the European dipper or just dipper, is an aquatic passerine bird found in Europe, Middle East, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. The species is divided into several subspecies, based primarily on colour differences, particularly of the pectoral band.
Taxonomy and systematics
The white-throated dipper was described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Sturnus cinclus. The current genus Cinclus was introduced by the German naturalist Moritz Balthasar Borkhausen in 1797. The name cinclus is from the Ancient Greek word that was used to describe small tail-wagging birds that resided near water. Of the five species now placed in the genus, a molecular genetic study has shown that the white-throated dipper is most closely related to the other Eurasian species, the brown dipper (Cinclus pallasii).
There are 14 subspecies of which one is now extinct (with †): C. c. hibernicus Hartert, 1910 – Irish dipper – Ireland and west Scotland C. c. gularis (Latham, 1801) – British dipper – Scotland (except west), north, central and west England and Wales C. c. cinclus (Linnaeus, 1758) – Northern white-throated dipper – north Europe, west and central France and north Spain, Corsica and Sardinia C. c. aquaticus (Bechstein, 1797) – Central European dipper – central and south Europe † C. c. olympicus Madarász, 1903 – Cyprus C. c. minor Tristram, 1870 – northwest Africa C. c. rufiventris Tristram, 1885 – west Syria and Lebanon C. c. uralensis Serebrovski, 1927 – Ural Mountains C. c. caucasicus Madarász, 1903 – Turkey to the Caucasus, north Iran and north Iraq C. c. persicus Witherby, 1906 – southwest Iran C. c. leucogaster Bonaparte, 1850 – south-central Russia, northwest China south to Afghanistan and north Pakistan C. c. baicalensis Dresser, 1892 – south-central and southeast Siberia C. c. cashmeriensis Gould, 1860 – west and central Himalayas C. c. przewalskii Bianchi, 1905 – east Himalayas, south Tibet and west China
Description
The white-throated dipper is about long, rotund and short tailed. The head of the adult (gularis and aquaticus) is brown, the back slate-grey mottled with black, looking black from a distance, and the wings and tail are brown. The throat and upper breast are white, followed by a band of warm chestnut which merges into black on the belly and flanks. The bill is almost black, the legs and irides brown. C. c. cinclus has a black belly band. The young are greyish brown and have no chestnut band.
Voice
The male has a sweet wren-like song. During courtship the male sings whilst he runs and postures, exhibiting his snowy breast, and when displaying he will take long and high flights, like those of the common kingfisher, accompanied by sharp metallic calls clink, clink, different from the normal zil.
Behaviour and ecology
The white-throated dipper is closely associated with swiftly running rivers and streams or the lakes into which they fall. It often perches bobbing spasmodically with its short tail uplifted on the rocks round which the water swirls and tumbles.
It acquired its name from these sudden dips, not from its diving habit, though it dives as well as walks into the water.
It flies rapidly and straight, its short wings whirring swiftly and without pauses or glides, calling a shrill zil, zil, zil. It will then either drop on the water and dive or plunge in with a small splash.
From a perch it will walk into the water and deliberately submerge, but there is no truth in the assertion that it can defy the laws of specific gravity and walk along the bottom. Undoubtedly when entering the water it grips with its strong feet, but the method of progression beneath the surface is by swimming, using the wings effectively for flying under water. It holds itself down by muscular exertion, with its head well down and its body oblique, its course beneath the surface often revealed by a line of rising bubbles.
In this way it secures its food, usually aquatic invertebrates including caddis worms and other aquatic insect larvae, beetles, Limnaea, Ancylus and other freshwater molluscs, and also fish and small amphibians. A favourite food is the small crustacean Gammarus, an amphipod shrimp. It also walks and runs on the banks and rocks seeking terrestrial invertebrates. Dippers may be preyed on by predatory fish such as brown trout although only one case has been recorded for this species unlike in American dipper.