Heikki Nikki's Image

Heikki Nikki (Finland) witnesses two dippers fighting over prime position.

After years of visiting the river in northern Finland, Heikki knew every 'dipping' rock favoured by the white-throated dippers. Picking one rock hidden beneath the flowing water to focus on, Heikki sat quietly on the bank, poised for the action. Then, all of a sudden, the rock became the subject of a hotly contested argument between two dippers.

White-throated dippers use 'dipping' rocks like this one as a launch pad to scout rivers before diving in to hunt small fish and mayfly and caddisfly larvae, which they swallow whilst submerged. Several thousand dippers overwinter in Finland, migrating from their main breeding grounds in Norway, Sweden and Russia. They are less easy to find in northern Finland, especially when much of the water is frozen, but a few hundred pairs do head there to breed, competing for food and nesting sites.