Ring Ouzels in Oxfordshire

I wrote the article below as part of a last minute plea for help with the March monthly highlights page on the Oxon Bird Log. I hope others will join me as shared authors of the highlights page. This month I learnt something about one of my favourite birds, Ring Ouzel, which are always a treat to see in the county:

 Ring Ouzels, Scotland, April 29th 2007, Tom Bedford

Ring Ouzel is a scarse passage migrant in Oxfordshire, usually seen more frequently in the spring, when small numbers of birds can be found in the Chilterns. Traditional sites include Linkey Down in the Aston Rowant Nature Reserve, where Ring Ouzels feed and shelter around the Juniper bushes on the Chiltern escarpment. Having spent three unsuccessful mornings on Linkey Down searching for Ring Ouzels in the last week, I thought I would take a look at the arrival dates this century, to see if I could improve my chances of seeing these attractive, but threatened, migrant thrushes. The chart below shows the first recorded arrival date of Ring Ouzel in Oxfordshire, as per the Oxfordshire Bird Report:

The most striking element of this chart is that there is a very wide spread of arrival dates, from March 18th to April 19th. I suspect that most other spring migrants have a far more compressed arrival window, though I have not looked at the data to confirm this.

There is a clear cluster of records between March 31st and April 2nd. Five of the twelve records are in this period, indicating the peak arrival period. The finding of a male Ring Ouzel on Otmoor on March 31st this year, fits exactly into this pattern. The Migration Atlas (BTO, 2002) confirms that “a peak late in March probably denotes the main wave of immigration by British breeders”. A second wave of migrant Ring Ouzels occurs in late April and early May, especially on the east coast, as Fennoscandian breeders move north. As British breeders are back on their breeding grounds by late March/early April, could some of the later Ring Ouzel arrivals in Oxfordshire, on April 14th and 19th, relate to Fennoscandian birds moving through the county?

The most productive site for finding Ring Ouzels in Oxfordshire is Linkey Down in the Chilterns. The Juniper bushes there reflect the favoured habitat of this species on their upland wintering grounds in the Mediterranean basin. Other upland sites (a relative expression) in the county have turned up Ring Ouzels, including Lollingdon Hill and Juniper Valley (Aston Upthorpe) in the Oxfordshire Downs. But each year Ring Ouzels are also reported in lowland areas, albeit in very small numbers. Finding a Ring Ouzel away from the Chilterns in Oxfordshire is a purely a matter of luck. Ring Ouzels found near Cuddesdon and Bampton in recent years were feeding in recently ploughed fields. The Otmoor bird of last week favoured the open field of Big Otmoor.

In summary, favoured sites in the Oxfordshire Downs and the Chilterns could still hold British breeding Ring Ouzels for another week or so. Ring Ouzels may also be encountered in Oxfordshire later in April, but potentially these migrants may be returning to Fennoscandian breeding areas.

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