Wallowa County Chieftain
Outdoors
wallowa.com
Contributed photo
I Dipper sits on a rock in a stream.
Dippers are solitary,
stream-loving birds
BIRD-
WATCHING
EH Van Blaricom
M
y bird of the month is a Dipper.
Other names are Water Ouzel or
Teeter Bird. Their habitat is on cold,
fast running mountain streams from Alaska to
Central America. They appear to be related
to the wrens and they are indeed a songbird,
but it is difficult to hear their songs over the
roar of the creek or river. Since I have been a
life-long trout fisherman who specialized in
fly-fishing on fast running creeks and rivers,
I have had an opportunity to observe these
amazing Dippers on almost all of the streams
that I fished. I have even found their nests,
which is difficult because they frequently hide
their nests behind the spray of a waterfall.
There are so many peculiarities about
Dippers, it is hard to tell about them in a few
sentences as they seem to defy the laws of
physics. For instance, they are quite buoyant
yet they can walk around on the bottom of
a fast moving stream. That’s where they get
most of their food, which are periwinkles and
helgramites. They are non-migrant and quite
territorial and never live in flocks as they
are never with more than their mates except
when they are training their fledglings. Their
weirdest habit is how they got their name
by dipping up and down. I differ with most
other birdwatchers, who claim this dipping
is for communication. The ones I’ve always
observed are most always alone, so who are
they communicating with? My theory is they
are mostly sitting on a rock in the middle of a
fast moving stream so if they stood still they
would be most likely to be seen by predators
than if they are in constant motion with
the fast-moving creek. In other words it’s a
survival tactic.
Dippers also eat snails, fish eggs, small fish
and all sorts of aquatic insects. Another oddity
is they just stay 10 or 15 yards ahead of me
while I am wading upstream. Then when I
get a long way from where I started, they
suddenly fly right past me to go back to where
I first encountered them. One other thing, the
females do all of the nest construction and do
all of the incubating plus most of the feeding
but the male also brings in various insects and
water creatures and helps in training what are
usually just 3 youngsters. That’s all I have
room for Dippers.
E.H. Van Blaricom resides in Joseph.
Lions Club takes over Fergi
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wallowa County skiers
can rest easy knowing that the
Fergison Ridge Ski Area (lo-
cally known as Fergi) will re-
main open for the foreseeable
future. The Enterprise-Joseph
Lions Club just took posses-
sion of the ski area from Wal-
lowa County.
Charlie Kissinger, presi-
dent of the ski club since 1983
and owner of the ski shop at
Fergison, recently announced
the transition to The Chief-
tain.
Kissinger explained the
club originally leased the ski
area from Joseph Forest Prod-
ucts in 1983. JFP was an area
sawmill that went bankrupt
about two years into the lease.
In order to save the proper-
ty for community skiing, 10
of the ski club members, in-
cluding Kissinger, formed a
corporation called the 10280
Corporation, and bought the
land at a sheriff’s auction in
1985. The 10280 represents
10 investors for the 280 acres
of land the ski area occupies.
“Gardner Locke (ski club
president at the time) bought
the property and basically the
10 of us made payments on it
and leased it to the ski club
until about five years ago,”
Steve Tool/Chieftain
Fergison Ridge Ski Area
should remain open for many
years to come, the result of a
land purchase of the ski area
by the Enterprise - Joseph
Lions Club from Wallowa
County.
Kissinger said. He added that
10280 eventually decided they
wanted to donate the property
to the ski club, but the club’s
lack of 501(c)(3) non-profit
status made the transaction
complicated. Fortunately for
everyone involved, Wallowa
County offered to step in.
“It was really great: 10280
donated the property to the
county for five years to clean up
the tax situation, and the Lions
Club bought it from the county
for $100,” Kissinger said.
The ski club already had
a long-standing relationship
with the Lions Club as many
members of the ski club were
already Lions members. “It
was a pretty smooth transi-
tion,” Kissinger said. He cred-
ited local attorneys Rebecca
Knapp and Roland Johnson
along with accountant Jeff
Edison and the community as
a whole for their efforts in fa-
cilitating the transition.
“It’s all been a commu-
nity effort to make it work,”
Kissinger said.
According to Kissinger, all
the parties involved with the
ski area are satisfied with the
land transition.
“The Lions Club now
owns the ski property, and
the ski club still owns all the
buildings and equipment,”
Kissinger said. “As a ski club
we’ll continue to operate Fer-
gi with a lease from the Lions
Club instead of the 10280 or
the county.”
Kissinger said that every-
one’s efforts ensured commu-
nity access to skiing for years
to come.
“It’s been a major thing in
my life, and it’s a great thing
for the community to have,”
he said.
January 18, 2017
A9