Longendale Trail

Juvenile robin

I was frankly knackered after yesterday's trip out but I had to get a new monthly travel card (I didn't bother over the weekend as we had no public transport on Sunday and I'd planned on using up the free ride yesterday). Seeing as I was out and seeing as the immediate choice was between the train to Hadfield or the train to Greenfield I chose the former as the walk proper starts round the corner from the station and is dead flat, both being factors for consideration when you're not sure if you're awake or not.

The mid-afternoon train journey out to Hadfield was oddly thin on birds, I was seeing more butterflies and not many of them. The pigeons within the M60 gave way to the jackdaws without and by the time we got to Glossop the woodpigeons were coming back to the trackside trees.

Robin, Hadfield Station 

The collared doves were singing at Hadfield Station and blackbirds, robins and spadgers were rummaging round. I walked round to the car park at the beginning of the trail where woodpigeons and a chiffchaff were singing. Each time I do this I think it a puzzle and a pity the trail doesn't start at the end of the platform in the station.

Approaching the Padfield Main Road bridge

Walking down the trail through the old railway cut was an odd mixture of song and silence. For the most part it was quiet but every so often a woodpigeon, blackbird or wren would sing. A blackcap sang near the car park. A song thrush sang near the bridge. I could hear the contact calls of small birds under leaf cover, mostly robins but also blue tits and great tits. I wondered if there had been rain locally, the trackside stream was running and here and there there was run-off from the cut. 

Blackbird 

Another blackcap sang a little further ahead then a garden warbler joined in, their songs the same but different: the rushed, scratchy quality and lack of bubbling undertones of the garden warbler obviously distinct when the songs are heard together but close enough to the blackcap's tone and tune to easily second-guess if heard on its own. I've heard blackcaps tuning up for a song that sounded very similar for a few seconds.

Juvenile robin 

I'd become used to the robins and blackbirds rummaging in the verges and hopping across the path. One robin was just sat on a twig by the path and it watched me very carefully as I walked by. The reason became immediately clear: a young robin was flying solo and was hunting by the stream under parental supervision.

Bottoms Reservoir 

The jackdaws that had been flying to and fro overhead were feeding in the fields above Bottoms Reservoir with the sheep and Canada geese. A few woodpigeons grazed, a pair of lapwings showed off in display flights, a couple of rooks rummaged about. I wonder where the rest of the rooks are. There were a few more Canada geese on the banks of the reservoir and a handful of black-headed gulls bobbed about on the water. The effects of the recent lack of rain were apparent.

Bottoms Reservoir, showing the effects of a dry Spring

Walking on past Bottoms Reservoir 

Rabbits ran in and out of the bramble patches as I walked by. Chiffchaffs, dunnocks and blackbirds sang in the trees, robins and wrens in the hawthorns. A curlew glided over and headed for the hills. I only managed to see one of the calling pheasants, as it strutted through the gateposts of a dry stone wall.

Looking over to Valehouse Wood

I walked through the trees as far as the seat overlooking this end of Valehouse Reservoir. I'm going to have to give this walk a proper visit, it'll have to be on a Friday when I could get a bus back to Glossop or out to Holmfirth. Still, I'd not done bad for sleepwalking. A swallow twittered its song as it passed, the only one of the day.

Looking back on the way back to Hadfield 

Departing hares

On the way back I was too slow to get a photo of the boxing hares but the rabbits were more accommodating. The rabbits were frankly astonishing, disappearing at the last minute whenever one of the many dogs on a walk snuffled past and reappearing almost as soon as their back legs had passed the entrance of each run.

Rabbit

Walking back to Hadfield 

At Hadfield Station yet another carrion crow gave yet another buzzard a hard time overhead. Apparently I'd missed a little gull and an osprey over Bottoms Reservoir, I didn't mind not having a cherry on top of the cake.

The view over and across Bottoms Reservoir