American Dippers cannot seem to just stand there, but have to constantly bob up and down. This one was at the bottom of the bob.

I just have this thing for American Dippers and clear, rushing little waterfalls. So here’s another painting of my favorite little bird, mainly because we’ve seen many of them on our recent summer hikes. Dippers were also John Muir’s favorite bird. He said it was because they only live along the cleanest mountain streams and represented what’s best about American wilderness. They never stray from rushing water. Given a river bend, dippers will fly the long route around instead of short-cutting across the neck. They build nests of moss and twigs behind waterfalls, so the chicks are wet from birth. Now here’s the best part: dippers feed by jumping into the water, sometimes barely above freezing, and with wings open for balance, they just walk around underwater kicking over stones looking for aquatic insects to eat. It’s as if they’re oblivious to the fact it’s water at all. They can jump into a huge current, and then appear someplace completely different, at home just ‘ambling around’ underwater. Pop, they’ll just jump out of a pool and sit for a moment on a log, just like this painting shows, seemingly without a drop of water on them. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve never seen a dipper actually shake off water.

 Here’s where I saw this little guy, the Dungeness River up in the Buckhorn Wilderness, featured today on the Wild Olympics website and just 20 miles from home. It’s the second steepest river in America, falling 7700 feet in just 28 miles.

 

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $145 unframed.
This custom frame (sorry, color seems a bit off in the photo) with a linen liner makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print. I have other frames of various styles too.
Email us for details.

Sorry, but it’s sold.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Here’s the blog on the web.  And here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

Click here to go to our main website – with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Nancy’s web portfolio of beautiful photographs

And Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.