The hard weather turned up a very unexpected bird just across the river yesterday, a male Ring Ouzel. Found in a Naburn garden by Jeremy Pierson, this thrush should be in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. It was still present today, feeding on ornamental crab apples with a bunch of Blackbirds and Fieldfares and when Jeremy invited me to have a look, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, a man with a van had turned up to pump out a drain just before I arrived and he had flushed the bird. I waited, with Ollie and Jeremy for about twenty minutes, warmed by a welcome cuppa kindly provided by Jeremy. I began to get a bit anxious as I had to go and pick my daughter up, but having spotted another crab apple tree, we switched our attention and sure enough, there was the dapper Ouzel, feeding on the grass below the tree. After a brief view, it flew up on to a fence and then into a tree. A nice view, if brief, of what could be York's first winter record of a Ring Ouzel.
Thanks again to Jeremy, who also let me use one of his pics of the bird, below.
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