Christine's walking & birds blog

I stopped by a road-side loch to see what was about. Across the road, a brown bird with pale wings flew up the hillside and alighted just beyond some people walking. A female ring ouzel - my first of the year.

I was about to continue my walk down to the water's edge when an unnoticed greenshank took off, followed by a common sandpiper. They flew along the shoreline and perched on boulders a short distance away. Retreating to my car, I heard a loud chacking sound coming from the bracken, and a juvenile ring ouzel emerged.


Now consumed by guilt (although I still grabbed a pic), I got back in my car and drove up the hillside to the car park, where loads of people were milling around. A repeated, ringing, somewhat melancholy whistle drew my attention to a male ring ouzel in a rowan tree on the cliff; I looked at the people passing me on the trail but this lovely call seemed to be going unheard and unheeded. The two adult birds must have had more than one youngster as they seemed to be visiting a patch of bracken on the hillside as well as the one by the loch; for the latter, they had to swoop down across the road, which was rather worrying. Good though, to see successful breeding.