Birdpass
English
Ring Ouzel

Ring Ouzel

Turdus torquatus

Identify the Ring Ouzel by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

The Ring Ouzel is a mountain thrush resembling a Blackbird, but males have a bold white crescent across the breast and pale, silvery wing panels. It breeds in open upland country in northern Europe and the mountains of central and southern Europe and western Asia and winters in the mountains of southern Europe, North Africa and Turkey. It has declined in several regions.

Did you know?

  • Both its English and scientific names refer to the male's white “ring”.
  • Genetically it is closer to Naumann's and Dusky Thrushes than to the Blackbird.

Voice

Song
Flight call

About the species

Identification

A dark thrush the size of a Blackbird, whose best feature is a clear white crescent across the upper breast. The wings have a silvery sheen, which also separates it from Blackbird. Females and young are duller and scalier; the young bird's pale crescent is weak in autumn. The flight is direct and jerky, and the call a hard “tack”.

Family

Turdidae

Size

Medium (thrush)

Colours

black, white, yellow, grey

About the habitat

Open mountain and upland habitats – rocky slopes, heather moorland, gullies and treeline woods with juniper and rowan; in winter juniper-rich mountains.

Diet

Insects, earthworms and other invertebrates in spring and summer; berries, especially juniper and rowan, in late summer and autumn.

Behaviour

A wary, ground-feeding thrush that hops and probes, then retreats to rocks or bushes to watch. Males sing a simple, fluty phrase from boulders or stunted trees, mainly at dawn and dusk, and give hard, rattling alarm calls. The female does most of the incubating, and both parents feed the young. In autumn it gathers at rich berry crops.

Sources

Photo: Paco Gómez, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turdus torquatus, Spain 1.jpg

Sound: Anthony Wetherhill, XC467639, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/467639

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC918335, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/918335

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_ouzel

See also