ring ouzel
- noun
- /rɪŋ ˈaʊzəl/
- UK
:
mirlo anillado
- While hiking in the moors, I spotted a ring ouzel perched on a rocky ledge, proudly displaying its distinctive white neck band.
Examples
-
It was a ring ouzel, and as this shy bird speared its way to the ridge on the moorland edge, it also drilled down through 35 years of memory to my first-ever encounter with the species.
Blog text (3) -
I suspect the poets are proclaiming what we all feel and what I felt when that ring ouzel rose from the rowan tree.
Blog text (3) -
The ring ouzel is a beautiful bird that is often seen around cliffs and stony hills in Europe.
-
As the sun set, we heard the melodious call of a ring ouzel echoing through the rocky landscape.
Synonyms
A medium-sized European songbird whose males have dark feathers and a white band on the neck, often in rocky mountains
A black thrush with a white band around its neck that lives on rocky hills
A European bird whose male has dark feathers and a white band around the neck
A black bird that sings, like a blackbird or ring ouzel
Surface Forms
Morphology
The name is compositional: 'ring' (a circular band or ring-like marking) modifies 'ouzel' (a type of bird), so the phrase denotes an ouzel with a ring-like marking around its neck. This kind of noun + modifier bird name is a regular, cross-linguistic naming pattern and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Ring ouzel gets its name from the white ring of feathers the male wears like a collar and from ouzel, an old word for a 'blackbird' or 'thrush'. So the name means 'the thrush with a ring' and helps you remember the dark bird with a white band around its neck.
