New visitor as spring’s sprung
Furtive ring ouzels, the mountainside cousins of our much-loved garden blackbirds, arrive each spring under a cover of darkness that matches their black plumage.
From March through to May, these diffident but striking thrushes touch down to seek out the grubs and bugs as they migrate.
Late winter would have seen the ouzels feasting on the juniper bushes that grow in profusion on the slopes of the Atlas Mountains across northern Africa. But once the call of spring sounds, birds, in flocks of up to a dozen, head north on an arc-shaped trajectory that takes them over the Iberian Peninsula and across the Bay of Biscay before hitting England’s south coast.
To the delight of thousands of British birdwatchers, the ouzels seek out the quiet, grassy habitat that harks of their breeding grounds on the remote moors and mountains of Scandinavia.
Southern England’s Chiltern Hills are a traditional stop-off point, with Ivinghoe Beacon, Blow’s
Downs and the Pegsdon Hills guaranteed sites for birders to study the subtle differences between ouzels and their ubiquitous relatives.
If only granted rear, profile or flight views, it is easy to dismiss ouzels as blackbirds. Indeed, they derive their name from the Old English for blackbird – osle.
Yet, achieve a full-on view and the striking white necklace of the male ring ouzel shines like a beacon, accentuated by the overall black plumage and smoky grey shades of the wing feathers. Brown female ouzels display a subtler, creamy-toned crescent across the chest.
After a cold, wet March, ouzels remained noticeable by their absence on their usual resting grounds. Once, however, a period of dry, calm weather took hold, reports came in from across a vast sweep of southern England with an estimated 1,300 birds noted on to the British Trust for Ornithology’s BirdTrack recording portal.
These sightings all relate to passage birds heading towards Scandinavia.
The bulk of our domestic breeding population, estimated at 7,300 pairs, arrived unseen weeks earlier on Britain’s northern uplands.
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The male has a very distinctive white neck ring and grey wings