Birds Made Out of Water

With a song as happy as riffles and rapids and falls, water ouzels are birds made out of water.

In 1894, John Muir wrote: "Ouzels ... scarce suggest any other origin than the streams themselves.... They come direct from the living waters, like flowers from the ground."

"Smoothly plump and compact," ouzels are fully a part of the water, dipping upstream for insects, swimming and diving. They are as blue-grey as the sand-bottomed pools, as rocks that pattern the riffles, blue-grey as the clouds that swell their world with rain.

Happily singing the melodies of the streams where they live, water ouzels are made out of water.