Brown dipper facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Brown dipper |
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The brown dipper (Cinclus pallasii) is a special kind of songbird that loves water. It lives in the mountains of eastern Asia. This bird looks a bit like a thrush, with a tail that often sticks up. It's mostly chocolate-brown, with a slightly lighter back and chest. At about 22 centimeters (8.7 inches) long and 87 grams (3.1 ounces), it's the biggest of all the dipper birds. You won't see this bird everywhere; it prefers mountain streams at lower or middle elevations.
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What's in a Name? (Taxonomy)
The brown dipper got its scientific name, Cinclus pallasii, in 1820 from a Dutch zoologist named Coenraad Jacob Temminck. The second part of its name, pallasii, honors a Prussian naturalist named Peter Simon Pallas.
Scientists have studied the genes of dippers. They found that the brown dipper is most closely related to another Eurasian species, the white-throated dipper.
Different Kinds of Brown Dippers
There are three main types, or subspecies, of brown dippers:
- C. p. tenuirostris: Found in Afghanistan and the mountains of central Asia, stretching to the central Himalayas.
- C. p. dorjei: Lives from the eastern Himalayas to Myanmar and northwest Thailand.
- C. p. pallasii: This type is found from eastern Siberia to central China. It also lives on islands like Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Japan, and Taiwan. You can also find it south to southern China and northern Indochina.
How Brown Dippers Find Food
Brown dippers are very good at finding food in streams. They have two main ways to eat:
- They can dive right into the water to catch larger creatures living on the stream bottom. These are called benthic organisms.
- They can also wade in shallow parts of the stream. Here, they pick up smaller organisms from the bottom.
Adult dippers often dive for food from December to April. This is when there are more large creatures to eat. This time is also their breeding season, so they need more food. For the rest of the year, they usually wade and pick food from the stream bottom. Young dippers also learn to dive for their meals.
In a very cold place called the Suntar-Khayata Mountains in Siberia, some brown dippers spend the winter near a hot spring. They feed underwater even when the air temperature drops below -55 degrees Celsius!
Sometimes, big storms called typhoons cause floods in streams in Taiwan. When this happens, brown dippers move to other streams that might not have as much food. These streams act as a safe place for them until the floods go down.
Gallery
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Brown dipper (c. 1620) by Mughal painter Ustad Mansur
