126 OUR FAVOURITE SONG BIRD^ 



perching for a lon^- time in one very conspicuous 

 position, and singing at intervals. The notes are 

 loud and full-toned, but unfortunately the Ring 

 Ouzel has the Blackbird's habit, only much more 

 emphasized, of introducing harsh tones amongst 

 them, and literally spoiling his own performance. 

 A few well-piped notes begin the song, but instead 

 of being continued they fall away into what is little 

 more than a rasping chatter ; and this is repeated 

 again and again, at intervals perhaps of a minute — 

 the song, as it were, always promising yet never 

 accomplishing, or attaining the beauty suggested by 

 the early notes. The Ring Ouzel sings most per- 

 sistently through April, but the song declines in 

 May and ceases in the early summer. 



Although gregarious upon its first arrival the 

 Ring Ouzel is not even sociable during the breeding 

 season. It is interesting to remark that the present 

 species is the only Thrush that migrates to our 

 islands to breed, the P'ieldfare and the Redwing 

 being winter visitors exclusively. The breeding 

 haunts of the Ring Ouzel are the rock-strewn hill- 

 sides, where birch trees and gorse-coverts are inter- 

 spersed amongst the big boulders and broken masses 

 of millstone grit, the banks of the mountain streams 

 and pools, where the alders take root literally in the 

 water, or even away on the open wind-swept moor 

 where the breast-hio-h bracken and lino- almost con- 

 ceal the hollows and cart-roads. The nest, which is 



