The Dipper: A Songbird That Lives in Rushing Water and Knows When a River Is Dying.

A small songbird jumps off a stone into a rushing river, walks along the bottom and turns over pebbles to find larvae. This is the white-throated dipper, and its life tells us whether a river is healthy or in trouble. In this film we follow the dipper from its moss nest hidden beside the water to its first winter alone, and we look at what happens to it when the river itself changes: in the streams of Wales that turned acid, in polluted town rivers, and in the rivers of South Wales that were cleaned until the birds came back. You will also meet the dipper's relatives, from the American dipper that walks underwater among spawning salmon to the rufous-throated dipper of the Andes, one of the rarest of them all. A small bird that cannot live in a dying river is a good reason to look at the rivers near us. Subscribe to Birds Know for more nature documentaries about the lives of wild birds. #dipper #birds #naturedocumentary