Peak District

Yesterday afternoon a hoopoe had been found in Derbyshire near Glossop, this morning I thought I'd bob over to see if it had stayed the night. I got the train from Piccadilly, got off at Glossop Station and walked the mile or so up Woodhead Road to Upper Swineshaw Reservoir. The hoopoe had been seen in fields near stables by the reservoir.

The jackdaws, pigeons and woodpigeons of the town centre gave way to the woodpigeons, blackbirds and robins of the gardens further up the road. Chiffchaffs and goldfinches sang in trees. At the edge of town willow warblers joined the chiffchaffs in the trees and whitethroats sang in the fields.

By Woodhead Road 

The sheep shared their fields with small flocks of woodpigeons, jackdaws, rooks and starlings and pairs of lapwings kept a watchful eye as I walked by or crows flew overhead. The hoopoe had been in a field just after Cemetery Road, I couldn't see anything in there that wasn't woodpigeons or jackdaws. I walked up the road as far as the reservoir, scanning the fields either side of the road. Plenty of woodpigeons, jackdaws and starlings, a few lapwings and mallards, a pheasant or two. No hoopoe. I wasn't altogether surprised: May rarities are quite often one-day wonders.

By Woodhead Road 

It started to rain so I wandered back the way I came. I spent a while scanning round the field opposite Cemetery Road, adding a brace of hares to the day's tally. There comes a time where you have to give up getting rained on while you look for something that isn't there, I gave it an hour and called it quits.

Longendale from Park Road

Starlings, Hadfield 

I decided to walk up Cemetery Road to Hadfield for the train back, largely because there were more fields that way and there was always the possibility the hoopoe might just have shifted a few fields along. There were more woodpigeons, jackdaws and starlings, a lot of the starlings had noisy youngsters in tow. A couple of fields had flocks of black-headed gulls in them, I couldn't see an obvious difference between those particular fields and most of the others. A few pheasants lurked, chiffchaffs, willow warblers and song thrushes sang, swallows twittered overhead.

Walking down Park Road to Hadfield 

The original plan was to move on and hunt for wood warblers at Dove Stone but given the dour state of the weather I put that off for another day.