Ring Ouzels have returned to the Nidderdale moors to breed after flying back from winter in the Atlas Mountains in North-West Africa.
The birds are a close relative of the Blackbird but are slightly smaller and slimmer with longer tails and a distinctive white crescent across the top of the breast.
In the UK, Ring Ouzels are of high conservation concern and are classified as ‘Red Listed’ after declining by almost 50% in the last 40 years.
The birds are known as the ‘Blackbirds of the mountains’ and enjoy eating juniper berries. The migration route of the birds follow where juniper berries grow.
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Nidderdale Moorland Group posted on its Facebook page that AONB gamekeepers work to ensure the ground-nesting birds can safely incubate and rear their young chicks when they arrive.
Nesting begins from mid-April when the female lays 3-5 eggs in a nest found on the ground or in moorland gullies, craggy screes or rocky areas.
The female will do most of the incubating, but both parents feed the chicks who fledge after 12-16 days.
AONB moorland gamekeepers recorded the birds’ distinctive call last weekend whilst watching a returning male on the moor.
The males like to find a prominent perch from which the strong, flutey song can be heard.
Listen below to the call of a Ring Ouzel.
Harrogate adventurer completes dangerous mission to reach ‘African pole’A Harrogate adventurer has claimed to be the first person ever to reach the African pole of inaccessibility, which is the continent’s furthest point from the ocean in any direction.
On December 6, Chris Brown and his team completed a dangerous mission through a politically unstable region to get there, which is in the middle of a dense jungle.
The pole is over 1,100 miles from the nearest coast and is near the town of Obo in the Central African Republic (CAR). It’s close to the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.
Mr Brown said he faced threats from “poachers, rebels and mercenaries” to reach the point, which took years of planning.
He said:
“[I was] not put off too easily by the various warnings and danger signals, I spent nearly three years planning on how to get there.”
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Mr Brown’s team included two security advisors from the United States, four soldiers from the CAR army and a photographer.
Army protection: Arnoux, Eric, Gustav and Frederic
The journey began in London on a flight to reach Bangui, which is the capital of CAR, via Brussels, Kigali and Duala.
They then chartered a flight from Bangui to an airfield at Obo to then get on a helicopter, which took them to the jungle.
Mr Brown said:
“After that we had to resort to picking our way through fairly dense jungle with the heli hovering above our position, out of small arms fire range, in case of emergency.
“The helicopter hovered over our position in the jungle as a deterrent and in case of emergency evacuation – keeping an altitude above small arms fire!”
“I took a couple of minutes to look around and thought wow, I’m in the middle of Africa. I was looking around at the jungle, it’s very oppressive. I’m a ginger northerner and I was dripping in sweat, taking it all in. It was fairly surreal.”
There are seven different poles of inaccessibility in the various continents and Mr Brown hopes to visit them all. He’s heading to Antarctica later this month.
Most of his friends and family all say the same thing about his adventurous hobby.
“They all think I’m mad!”