SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



217 



THE RING OUSEL. 



By Robert Godfrey. 



T N the thrush family, the ring ousel, Turdus 

 ■*■ torquatus, is the only strictly summer visitor to 

 the British Islands. In exceptional cases, solitary 

 individuals remain over the winter, but though 

 such wintering birds have been found in Scotland, 

 none to my knowledge have occurred in the Forth 

 area. With us the bird does not put in an appear- 

 ance till the end of March, and he makes at once 

 for his ancient haunts by the rugged streams and 

 waterfalls. He is one of the many birds that 

 enliven the solitudes when the heather is again 

 springing up afresh to renew its grandeur. The 

 ring ousel chooses for his home the desolate hills 

 with their many tumbling burns, and the stony 

 screes that lie exposed on the steep hillsides. At 

 the time of their arrival they are very noisy and 

 musical, and by their continual clamouring, afford 

 the observer a much better opportunity of esti- 

 mating their numbers than they do later in the 

 season. Though occurring by the larger streams 

 commonly enough, they have a decided preference 

 for the smallest and narrowest burns, and for those 

 especially with steep and rocky sides, and as they 

 fly up and down the streams, awakening rudely the 

 still slumbering hills with their harsh notes, they 

 seem to be displaying unbounded energy in their 

 delight at reaching their nesting-haunts once more. 

 It is somewhat difficult to dissociate the ring ousel 

 from water, seeing that the stony hill-slopes and 

 rock-faces which he so loves to haunt are generally 

 close to some trickling stream or other, but in 

 districts where the valleys are wider and the hills 

 higher than in the Pentlands, and where the 

 birds are found most commonly on the stony tracts 

 on the mountain sides, the adjunct of water to the 

 ring ousel's haunts is seen to be, in many cases, 

 merely a casual detail. 



This bird is brought most prominently into notice 

 during the months of April and May, when his 

 noisy calling and bold singing force him before our 

 gaze. His call-note is a harsh " chack-chack- 

 chack-chack," and his song is a loud, bold, clear 

 production, often repeated, but presenting very 

 little variation. It may be rendered as " tyu-wee " 

 or "kee-weep," many times repeated. In the wild 

 uplands of Dumfries I have heard the bird singing 

 as early as 3.46 a.m. on April i6th, which is earlier 

 than I have noted the blackbird's song on the 

 lowlands at a corresponding date. Sometimes he 

 sings from a leafless tree, but generally he is 

 perched on a stone or other simple post on the 

 hillside. Besides these main cries of the ring ousel, 

 I have noted a repeated cry, somewhat like a 

 blackbird's, uttered when the bird is suddenly 



roused, and another different cry when young are 

 being fed. 



In his actions on the ground the ring ousel re- 

 sembles a typical thrush, and is, if anything, more 

 active than our other common species. He stands 

 proudly erect, with his tail touching the ground, 

 and displays, to full advantage, the pure white 

 crescent on his breast. After a short halt, he sets 

 off in his search for food, flirting his wings as he 

 starts off, and proceeds, by short stages, over the 

 uneven surface of heather, darting quickly at such 

 scraps as lie in his way. This movement is a com- 

 bination of running and hopping, and when in 

 motion he lowers his head and raises his tail clear 

 of the ground, and maintains this attitude even 

 after halting, until he has picked up some morsel 

 of food, when he at once assumes his erect posture. 

 When disturbed, he flies off, with harsh calling, to 

 a good outpost, and sometimes jerks up his tail 

 like a blackbird. The flight of the ring ousel is 

 performed with rapid wing-beat and regular break, 

 and has a fluttering appearance owing to the light- 

 ness of the inner webs of the expanded primaries. 



During the latter half of April the birds may be 

 seen hopping in and out amongst the heather, look- 

 ing for a suitable nesting-hole, and before the end 

 of the month they have not only chosen the site, 

 but have in some cases already laid. Such nests 

 as I have found on the Pentlands and on the Lam- 

 mermuirs have been near water, generally on the 

 banks of the small tributary streams that flow down 

 side ravines to a main valley. Often the nest is 

 placed on a rocky ledge with or without a protecting 

 heather-tuft over it, sometimes it is snugly con- 

 cealed amongst long heather not far from the 

 stream, and less often it is placed on the low grassy 

 bank of a less romantic burn. The ring ousel is 

 partial to certain stretches of the streams during 

 the nesting-season, and selects year after year the 

 same rocky face or the same heather-clad slope for 

 its nest ; this is very noticeable in some cases, but 

 is, of course, far from being the rule, there being so 

 many subsidiary purposes at work to prevent its 

 being continually carried out. When the nest is 

 built on the soft bank of a stream, a suitable cavity 

 is first formed by the bird, and the nest itself has a 

 very thick muddy bottom, but when a ledge of rock 

 is chosen as the site, such a foundation is not 

 necessary and the amount of mud is much less. 

 The nest is formed externally of pieces of bracken, 

 sedge, moss, and rough grass, held together by 

 mud; the rim consists of small root-tufts of grass 

 with pieces of heather and bracken, and the 

 lining consists of fine dry hay — not so fine, how- 



