~ By Vicky ~
The wettest fall followed the driest summer yet experienced in all my years living in Oregon. And yet the lady and I were relieved for the seemingly endless onslaught of precipitation because it meant replenishment of dried wetlands, and precipitously low-flowing rivers and lakes. Since October it has been raining most every day of the week. And while glad for the rain we have been at a loss as to how to reprieve ourselves from it for even just an overnight outing without going as far as central Oregon.
So, we have swapped out our rain boots for snow shoes and are taking a different tact - gaining elevation where rain becomes snow, and soggy ground gives way to blanketed winterland scenes. Heading east of Salem we ascend the Cascades mountain range and leave the rain to find snow at about 3,500 feet above sea level. We've been these past few weeks exploring the Jefferson Wilderness. It was untouched by the 2020 forest fires, though driving to get there we do pass the scorched Santiam Wilderness which is currently not hikeable due to massive burn areas.
The trails we have been hiking have brought us to mountain lakes and alongside cold streams. I have come to appreciate the snowy forests from a photographer's eye - without the snow the forest, while lush, is highly contrasty in its lighting; details are obliterated by deep shadows that mingle with patches of brilliant light. And this dynamic lighting is hard to capture in a photo. It especially makes capturing our beloved birds a challenge. The dawn and dusk golden and blue hours weakly penetrate such thick forests as we have in Oregon, and all other day lighting casts birds in deep shadows, unless one is lucky enough to find a bird perched and frontally positioned in a warm beam of light. Then there are the overcast days with better diffusion of light but loss of that color pop in colorful birds. Snow captures and throws back up the wan light of overcast days, and suddenly the forest illuminates with even temperament. The color pop is still not the color pop of a golden sun beam on a colorful bird breast, but I'll take it. Moderation is a hard thing for me to appreciate, but this moderate light I have come to better understand.
With our most recent hike the snow began to appear at about 3,500 feet up. At the height of our hike, that is 3,900 feet high, the ground was freshly blanketed in a thick layer of white woolly snow. The woodland birds were especially shy, though we regularly heard their high pitched calls. Standing still for as long as we might, we never caught sight of even a patch of bird feather tittering through. The only birds we spotted were varied thrushes and one brown creeper (though more were heard). S. did catch sight of a mid-sized grey thing, but it was such a flash that she came away with few details of it. This hike was especially pleasing because it is a forest with small rushing streams, which is the landscape I love most. Give me a rugged vista of grand trees, interesting boulders, and moody clouds, and I'll be impressed. Add to that just a few rushing rivulets of clear mountain runoff, and my breath will be taken away.
Which brings us, as always, back to the birds. What flavor of bird were we yearning to encounter here? Our hopes were set on seeing an American Dipper. We knew they were in the area. We had our healthy streams and a mountain lake. At every chance in the hike where the trail came near the stream, I spurred off to scan the stream. I was hopeful. The stream had large mossy boulders, perfect for a Dipper couple to build their globe-shaped nests. It was in this hopeful and expectant state that I realized the Dipper is the one bird that embodies the spirit of mountain streams. They utterly thrive in the clear, healthy waters of these streams. We have only ever seen Dippers in these environs, and for a fact, they can only be found in such environs.
My excitement to catch sight of the Dipper was the same as my excitement to catch a glimpse of a rushing stream on a hike. Even on a wet Oregon trail, the flow and fury of a small stream brings a refreshing thrill of hope to my soul. To know that the Dipper, an amazing bird in it's own right, goes hand-in-hand with such streams utterly ignites me. My imagination swims with romanticized thoughts of Dippers and streams, bobbing tail feathers and swirling rock ripples, the white flashes of batting eyelids and swift water-tips, proud gray bodies steadily at ease in the fast-flowing freezing water.
The American Dipper is a grey round little bird. The only color he gets is in his youth when the bill is pale orange and the breast feathers are finely scaled with white. To the uninitiated and the unaware, this bird will most likely be overlooked (if noticed at all) as a drab unimportant thing. Unfortunately with birds, size matters to others. How many times have we been looking through our binoculars at a bird when another hiker, intrigued, asks us what we are looking at only to be visibly disenchanted when they hear us excitedly say "a so-and-so bird!" Their haughty reply expressed on their faces - just a bird? What were they expecting? A large furry mammal most likely. A moose, or coyote, or a deer. Even a rabbit would get their appreciation. But a bird? Hardly.
The American Dipper is a grey round little bird, but is the only passerine who can swim and dive. The Dipper is the only bird who live their entire lives along water. They live, feed, nest and breed on the water. The Dipper is in the minority of passerine where both the male and the female sing, day and night, they both do sing. Their standard of living is so high that they cannot be found on waters that are soiled by human pollution. The presence of the Dipper signifies the health of a stream, river or lake. When a Dipper is found flying low back and forth above the river, or foraging head first in the fast moving water, or pluckily swimming and diving to the stream's bottom, what is found is the water's spirit, embodied in this gray round little bird.
