Longendale Trail

Longendale Trail 

I'd caught up with my sleep, with a brief nod to the dawn chorus at half time, but still felt bleary-eyed so it came as a bit of a relief to find it was pouring down. The weather had calmed down by lunchtime so I bobbed out to Hadfield thinking I could get a quick nosy at the start of the Longendale Trail in between trains without taking the risk of getting too wet. It's literally two minutes from the station to the car park and the first kilometre or so has plenty of tree cover.

As I left the station dozens of jackdaws were flying about, calling the while, or settling into the treetops and chuckling at each other. Woodpigeons hunched in the trees or cooed from chimney tops. And small birds sang: song thrushes, blackbirds, robins, coal tits, great tits and dunnocks. The first chiffchaff was singing in a tree by the bridge by the car park. Walking down the trail there was more of the same joined by blue tits, chaffinches and wrens.

I walked as far as the Padfield Main Road Bridge, checked the time and made my way back. The clouds over the hills on one side were black, the sun was poking through the holes in the clouds over on the other side, I knew which would roll in if I carried on into the more open country. The woodpigeons and jackdaws were congregating in the treetops and the blackbirds were outsinging the robins.

Longendale Trail 

I'd had a bit of fresh air, had a blast of birdsong and had four minutes to wait for the train back to Manchester. There's no rule saying birdwatching has to be hard work.