A ring ouzel at Pleinmont this spring. (Picture by Paul Hillion, 0957327)

IN THE days when I was teaching birdwatching night classes it was not unusual for me to raise a laugh. Laughter is a good way of reinforcing a point.

There was one occasion, however, when the joke really was on me. It was in the olden days when classrooms were fitted with chalkboards which had to be rubbed clean using a pad mounted on a wooden block.

I had just cleaned the board and was describing the thrush family members, which include blackbirds, dippers and ring ouzels.

I was wearing a navy Guernsey.

‘Ring ouzels are like blackbirds with a white band across the chest,’ I said, demonstrating the band’s position with my hands.

A laugh went up and I looked quizzically at my students.

‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded.

They pointed at my chest, which had the replica of a ring ouzel’s white band across it from the chalk dust on my hands.

Ah well, the point had been well made.

Finding a ring ouzel the following Sunday when we went out looking for spring migrants was not so easy. They are wild and elusive birds that dash off at the first sign of danger which,

in their minds, includes birdwatchers.

Ouzel is the ancient name for blackbird (the old English was osle), giving rise to water ouzel (now known as a dipper) and ring ouzel.

Ring ouzels are passing through the islands at the moment on their way to the highlands of Britain and Scandinavia.

This spring seems to have been good for them in the islands, with many birds seen in Herm, Alderney and in Guernsey.

The same size as blackbirds, males are largely black with pale-yellow beaks. Females are brown. Both sexes have a white band across the breast, although the female’s is off-white.

Both sexes have silvery wing feathers that show up well in flight – they are longer winged than blackbirds – and form a white line along the body when folded (as appears on Paul Hillion’s excellent photograph. More of his pictures can be seen at www.islandbirds.co.uk).

The best places to see ring ouzels at this time of year while they are on migration are on the tops and cliff edges at Pleinmont Point, the west coast headlands and L’Ancresse Common.

However, their habitat of choice is gorse areas, scrub and heathland, so anywhere along the south coast path could turn up a bird or two.

In Herm, the farm fields and northern common are good places to look, especially along stone walls marking out fields and the cliff areas.

Three males were near the campsite last week and gave reasonable views through my telescope for two couples passing by. (I always stop casual walkers and show them any exciting birds, whether they are interested or not. Nobody has ever said ‘Oh, that was boring, why did you stop us?’ Indeed, the opposite is usually the response.)

In Alderney, the task of finding ring ouzels is more difficult as there are so many places they feel happy in. I have seen them around the base of Fort Essex, all along the cliffs – although not every year – and in the Giffoine area.

A pair that turned up there this spring stayed for at least three days, allowing some Alderney birders who had never seen a ring ouzel to enjoy their presence. This was unusual, as ring ouzels rarely stay long when on migration. Early morning is the best time to see them and often they have disappeared by midday.

Being highland breeders, ring ouzels cannot survive cold winters and migrate down to Morocco.

They do not give up their tough highland life, however, and spend the winter in the high passes of the Atlas Mountains.

The Atlas Mountains in Morocco, where ring ouzels seen in Guernsey have spent the winter. (Picture by Tim Earl, 0957326)

I was leading an early-March tour to Morocco a few years ago and found a couple of large flocks of ring ouzels to the delight of my companions.

The surprising feature of the flocks was that they were not timid – we were close to them when they were first seen and the birds moved nearer to us as they foraged for juniper berries and insects.

On migration and their breeding grounds they are wild and nervous birds, flying off with a stony ‘tuck, tuck’ call, harder and slightly more high-pitched than the blackbird’s ‘chuck, chuck’ alarm.

Sadly, as with many species featured in this column, ring ouzels are in decline, at least in Britain where authorities have now designated them as red data book birds. This means that they are under intense study and biodiversity action plans are being implanted to bolster numbers.

It is not known whether they are in decline due to breeding factors or as a result of problems on their migration route. They are protected but frequently killed by French and Spanish hunters in mistake for blackbirds, which are hunted until the end of February.

All ring ouzels over-winter in the Atlas Mountains but as the central European populations are stable, it is assumed that this is not where the problem lies.

As usual, increasing average temperatures are being blamed, but I have never been able to work out why this should be a factor in Britain but not in Austria.

As a footnote and relating to last month’s theme, the scientific name of Turdus torquatus means ‘collared thrush’.