This wet Saturday morning I made my way to the upper end of the park to check for dippers. After checking Bridge 3 and the area down to Bridge 5, I walked up to the Granite St. Reservoir. Just above the reservoir two dippers flew past, one calling in chase mode.
I walked further up the creek and found an unbanded dipper in a pool in the creek below the road to Reeder Dam. The banded male from Bridge 3 was in the next pool above the unbanded bird. Both were actively feeding.
fdl
That was an exciting and significant sighting of the banded male still in the same stream way past the breeding season. It seem reasonable that dippers here would not need to leave for winter, unlike the montane populations in the Sierras and Cascades. But this is the first solid evidence on Ashland Creek.