Longendale

Willow warbler

It was a cool, cloudy Saturday and I didn't feel like doing much so I got the train to Hadfield and had a slow stroll along the Longendale Trail as far as Valehouse Reservoir and back. One of the beauties of the Longendale Trail is that although it's apparently dead flat you quickly get a sense of being among the hills. There were a few people about but no crowds and a lot of the time there was just me, whatever birds were about and a cold wind.

The singing blackbirds, robins and chiffchaffs in the trees drowned out the collared doves and woodpigeons singing on the rooftops of Hadfield. I walked round the corner and through the car park onto the trail. For once the wind was blowing down the trail so this first, sheltered stretch felt decidedly cool. Which didn't stop it being busy with small birds though they could be a devil to spot amongst all the new foliage. 

Coal tits

Robins, wrens and great tits bounced about in the hedgerows and fossicked about the sides of the path. The blackbirds tended to favour the damp grass by the trackside stream. Blackcaps, chaffinches and chiffchaffs sang from the depths and a song thrush sang from a treetop over by the road. I wouldn't have noticed the goldfinches and long-tailed tits in the trees but for their quiet contact calls. A pair of coal tits were more conspicuous as they hunted in the deep moss on one of the tree trunks and, unlike the others, didn't do a flit the moment a camera appeared.

Looking towards Peak Naze

Beyond the bridge carrying Padfield Main Road the landscape opens up and a few willow warblers joined the chiffchaffs singing in the trees. There was a constant traffic of jackdaws, starlings and woodpigeons moving between the fields either side of the trail.

Walking by Bottoms Reservoir

Bottoms Reservoir

A pair of oystercatchers fed in one of the fields above Bottoms Reservoir, black-headed gulls and rooks joined the jackdaws and starlings feeding round the sheep in another. I couldn't see any ducks or geese on the reservoir though a pair of goosanders flew overhead towards the upper valley.

Peak Naze

Cowslips

Approaching Valehouse Reservoir the track is lightly wooded, coal tits and blackcaps joining in with the singing chiffchaffs and willow warblers. 

By Valehouse Reservoir

By Valehouse Reservoir

There was a lot going on in one of the thickets, pairs of blue tits and great tits foraging in the undergrowth while coal tits and something else were flitting about in the canopy. There was a bench nearby set within the bushes with a view out over the valley, I decided to sit there and wait for the birds to head my way. It took a while but the "something" turned out to be a small mixed flock of half a dozen siskins and three or four lesser redpolls. I spent a while trying, and failing, to get a photo of any of them, they were very fidgety and busy and didn't often emerge out into the open. 

The most cooperation I got out of any of the siskins. The female siskin that had been in that open frame had just exited stage left. The redpolls made sure to always have plenty of leaves in the way.

Bottoms Reservoir

It had become a very pleasant afternoon as I made my way back, bumping into another small flock of siskins along the way. A meadow pipit added to the songscape and a curlew called as it flew over the higher fields. I was totally unprepared for the yellow wagtail that flew low overhead and headed up the valley, I'd only seen my first of the year yesterday.

Bottoms Reservoir

Approaching the bridge pairs of dunnocks and siskins frolicked in the bushes, goldcrests, robins and chiffchaffs sang in the trees. As I got nearer to town blackbirds and blackcaps joined in and the robins and great tits became less wary but still remained camera shy.

Dunnock

More by luck than judgement I'd timed it so the train back was waiting for me at Hadfield Station. I'd had a couple of hours' dawdle rather than a walk, which is no bad thing sometimes, the scenery had been splendid and there had been plenty about to see.