I saw a male ring ouzel hopping about in the grass and bracken below the Inverted V area on Sunday - maybe looking for a nesting site - but it seemed perfectly unconcerned by the handful of climbers in the vicinity. I think they're quite laid back really, whatever the ornithologists might be telling us!

Sure - I spend a lot of time on Ashop and also the w grit edges. Just happened to be walking from Fox House to Stanage and back on Sunday in a big loop (plus bouldering gear, but it started to drizzle). That Ring Ouzel didnt seem the slightest bit phased by anyone (if he were a human being I imagine he would have spoken with a Don Whillans accent). To answer your point: for some reason it seems they DO want to build their nests where there are quite a few people about.

Sure. But this one seemed to be very content, and not the least bit bothered by anyone in the close vicinity.

Well we can only speculate since we aren't experts and we only have our own expoerinece for research. However, faced with the fact that Ring Ousels consistently choose to nest on the popular end of Stanage - the busiest bit of gritstone in the world - when there are vast areas of significantly less-busy similar bits of gritstone moorland near by, it is difficult to conclude that they actually detest the presence of climbers. When you add the fact that nesting was not noticably different during the foot and mouth year, and the theory that they may actually like the odd person around to scare away predators, it does seem that the current relationship is probably working as well as anything could. Alan