Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
THE SONG BIRDS
THE THRUSHES
The Ring Ouzel,
sometimes called the Mountain Blackbird (T. torquatus), is an easily recognized bird, its entire plumage being brownish black set off by a crescent-shaped mark of white across the chest and an orange bill. It spends the summer on the moors and pine-clad highlands of northern Europe, and the winters in central and southern Europe, there often frequenting cultivated fields and gardens, where its habits are much like those of its relative, the Blackbird. Its nest is also like that of the Blackbird, being usually placed in a low bush, in banks, or on the ground. The song is powerful and far-reaching but is rather monotonous and altogether not of a high order. A well-marked geographical race (T. alpestris), with the feathers of the lower parts white-margined, occurs in the Alps of central and southern Europe.
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