After yesterdays failure at finding the White-throated Dipper I did a search on Google Maps for suitable habitat for this bird. My field guide told me that the bird prefers fast-flowing water with exposed boulders. I was a little confused yesterday when I was searching for the bird because all the water was practically stagnant.
Anyway, with a quick search on Google Maps I saw that there was a small waterfall further upstream. I went there first thing this morning and found the bird right away. Easy!
Neat bird. It likes to dip into the water, often swimming around looking for food. In fact it can swim under water because it has solid bones - apparently the only flying bird that has solid bones! It was having a tough time flying around, no wonder why.
There's a good chance that this bird will be here for the winter so I'll be checking in on it once in a while.
That's bird #150 for Europe! And my 102nd new bird since coming to Europe. My goal was 103 new birds - I'll probably break that by the end of the day in Spain.
It was pretty cold this morning with frost on the grass:
