Sighting
The Dipper
Kathleen Jamie
It was winter, near freezing,
I'd walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird.
It lit on a damp rock,
and, as water swept stupidly on,
wrung from its own throat
supple, undammable song.
It isn't mine to give.
I can't coax this bird to my hand
that knows the depth of the river
yet sings of it on land.
I saw a European Dipper exactly once, in April 2000. I was a high school student on my first trip to the UK, and we were on a long bus ride from Stratford-on-Avon (I think) to Edinburgh. I was glued to the windows, thin bird book on my lap, looking for new species (yes I was a strange child), and on a rock in the middle of a stream somewhere in the north of England I glimpsed a small bird with a perfectly pure white throat. There was nothing else it could have been. I saw many wonderful things on that trip, but the memory of the Dipper will always stand out for being so quick, yet so unmistakeable.
Kathleen Jamie
It was winter, near freezing,
I'd walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird.
It lit on a damp rock,
and, as water swept stupidly on,
wrung from its own throat
supple, undammable song.
It isn't mine to give.
I can't coax this bird to my hand
that knows the depth of the river
yet sings of it on land.
I saw a European Dipper exactly once, in April 2000. I was a high school student on my first trip to the UK, and we were on a long bus ride from Stratford-on-Avon (I think) to Edinburgh. I was glued to the windows, thin bird book on my lap, looking for new species (yes I was a strange child), and on a rock in the middle of a stream somewhere in the north of England I glimpsed a small bird with a perfectly pure white throat. There was nothing else it could have been. I saw many wonderful things on that trip, but the memory of the Dipper will always stand out for being so quick, yet so unmistakeable.