• Switching senses: Instead of just singing louder when the river roars, white-throated dippers lower their volume and start blinking their bright white eyelids more – using sight instead of sound to get their message across when other birds are nearby.
• Context matters: Dippers change how they communicate in real time depending not just on the noise around them, but also on whether they have an audience – showing an unusual level of behavioral flexibility.
• Evolutionary clues: Researchers say this is one of the clearest examples yet of a wild animal switching between senses to communicate, offering new insights into how animals adapt their signals to challenging environments.