Brown Dipper
Cinclus pallasii
A chocolate-brown, short-tailed thrush-like bird of clear, flowing streams. No other stream bird in its range is dark brown all over (adult) or dark brown mottled with pale (juvenile). Plunges into streams, swimming and diving to capture prey like a seabird. Seldom found more than a few feet away from water. Uses any moving water so long as it is clear and open--even hot-spring fed pools in the dead of winter. Song a rich and variable series of trilling and rattling notes. Often gives a buzzy “zeet” in flight.
Taxonomy
The brown dipper was described by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1820 and given the binomial name Cinclus pallasii. The type locality is Eastern Siberia. The specific epithet pallasii was chosen in honour of the Prussian naturalist Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811). Of the five species now placed in the genus, a molecular genetic study has shown that the brown dipper is most closely related to the other Eurasian species, the white-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus).<p>There are three subspecies:
- Scientific name
- Cinclus pallasii
- Authority
- Temminck, 1820
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Cinclidae
- Genus
- Cinclus
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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