I'd love to claim that I'd taken this picture when I was fortunate enough to see one of these beautiful birds on Tuesday - unfortunately mine came out so blurred and out of focus that even I'm struggling to identify the brown blob at the centre of the screen as a bird. This is a picture of the now-famous Dipper, a bird which I think has a pretty strong claim to be adopted as the official bird of Readers Recommend. If you've ever had the honour (and it really is an honour) of watching one in action, you'll agree that it does exactly what we do - constantly seeking out new pleasures, bobbing up and down to the music that's surely in its head, twitching its tail in time to the rhythm, and dipping in and out of the water, trying out this and that.
ToffeeGirl and I are off on another walk this afternoon - we're crossing the Forth into the Kingdom of Fife (aka Blimpyland) but only just. A short stroll around North Queensferry is the order of the day - hopefully more interesting bird sightings to report back.
A question for you all: if not the Dipper, which bird/animal should be adopted as the official RR mascot?
EDIT: Thanks to ejd for starting a moon-themed post above. Can we transfer our moon-based activities up there - much as I appreciate the 'traffic', I fear that my poor little dipper's in danger of being eclipsed!
EDIT #2: Apologies to everyone for my revisionist approach to history. I've moved all the non-Dipper/RR familiar comments up to ejd's post above. Sorry if I've lost anything important and sorry if it's made anyone feel at all discombobulated. Particular apologies to Chris whose comments I moved mid-conversation as it were ...
