White-throated Dipper Cinclus cinclus

... a flash of chocolate with a touch of cream, shrieking and flying fast just inches above the water, stopping and bobbing on boulders, dancing to the swirl of the rushing waters: that elusive bird - the Dipper.

The Dipper family has only five species worldwide but is unique as the only passerine fully adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. Dippers are birds of fast flowing mountain rivers strewn with rocks and boulders, where they continuously bob up and down in their endless search for aquatic insects. The White-throated Dipper is found in most European countries with suitable habitat, and its patchy distribution continues across Asia to the Pacific Ocean. These remarkable birds resemble very large chunky wrens with white breasts. With their short, strong wings they have little trouble swimming under water or even walking along the bottom searching for food. They are sedentary and solitary - and most races only move from their breeding territories in extreme winter conditions.

Boys at an A Rocha Czech summer camp fixing a Dipper nestbox to a riverside tree

In the Czech Republic, Dipper numbers have been fairly stable for many years but are now coming under threat through extreme weather conditions and acidic pollution. Young people from the A Rocha Czech nature clubs in both East and South Bohemia are monitoring Dipper populations. They have also been trying to help where the birds have been badly affected by abnormal floods. In the south of the country, in the Šumava Mountains, many road bridges were swept away in 2002. These bridges were very popular as nesting sites for Dippers, which like concealed ledges and crevices where they can build their large domed nests. Unfortunately, the replacement "Bailey" bridges are much more exposed and don't have the same appeal. At the 2003 summer camp in the Šumava the children constructed specially designed nestboxes and then waded into the water to fix them to the underside of surviving road bridges, a very popular task in the high summer temperatures! At the 2004 camp each site was surveyed. None of the boxes have been occupied yet, but we hope they'll be used in 2005 and the monitoring will continue.

In recent years a pair of Dippers have successfully nested in the water-turbine room underneath the new field study centre at Dobre (formerly a water-mill). Although the plan is to renovate the turbine and have it working, a great effort will be made not to disturb these lovely creatures which now seem to depend here on human help to survive.

- Keith Morris and Pavel Svetlik