Longendale

Robin singing, Hadfield

I'd done the day's errands and had a fidgety mood on me so I decided to get the trains and have a potter along a bit of the Longendale Trail and get some of the stiffness out of my joints.

The view from the train to Hadfield usually involves a few woodpigeons, lesser black-backs and jackdaws. The woodpigeons were few and far between. The lesser black-backs stayed eithin the city boundaries. There were a handful of jackdaws at Dinting and only a couple of them at Glossop. There were plenty of large white butterflies. This is pretty much how August birdwatching goes.

A couple of jackdaws chunnered on the chimney pots of Hadfield. Robins and chiffchaffs squeaked in the hedgerows of the carpark.

Robin
I don't know what caught its eye, it resumed singing almost immediately.

The Longendale Trail 

I wandered down the Longendale Trail. It had become a warm, but not too hot, sunny day and the walking was good. Large whites and speckled woods chased each other about the trackside. Woodpigeons sang in the treetops and a couple of robins sang in the bushes. Beyond the Padfield Main Road bridge great tits and chaffinches joined the squeaking chorus and a great spotted woodpecker was a bit more assertive in its objections to elderly passersby.

Rook

A crowd of Canada geese grazed the fields leading down to Bottoms Reservoir and made plenty of noise in the process. The rooks and jackdaws were relatively quiet. There were a few more geese on the reservoir with half a dozen black-headed gulls and a couple of cormorants.

The trail past Bottoms Reservoir 

Bottoms Reservoir 

A couple of buzzards called loudly as they circled over the hillside and drifted over Peak Naze. A brown hawker patrolled the willowherbs along the pathside. 

Broad-leaved helleborine going to seed

As I walked through the light woodland a nuthatch and a couple of wrens joined the chorus of squeaks and tuts under leaf cover. 

Harebell

Looking over Longendale across Valehouse Reservoir 

Toadflax 

Cladonia

There was more of the same as I passed Valehouse Reservoir. I was struck by the absence of rabbits, especially as there seemed to be fewer dogs being walked than usual. 

Cuckoo pint berries

I had a sit down on a bench and wondered what to do next. There was a serious risk of my absent-mindedly walking into Holmfirth, which would have been bad news because the next bus back was next Friday morning. Then I noticed that a chap who'd walked past me ten minutes earlier was crossing Rhodeswood Dam. Rather than walking back on myself I could find the path leading that way then walk along the paths by the reservoirs and into Tintwistle. And off I went.

Taking the path from the trail to the dam

The path I wanted led through some still-damp woodland then across a field of sheep before joining a metalled lane leading to the dam. The woodland was brisk with speckled woods and squeaking chiffchaffs and great tits, the fields were busy with woodpigeons, the rooks and jackdaws taking the higher ground near the Longendale Trail. 

Rhodeswood Reservoir 

Rhodeswood Reservoir was full and a prolonged scan round found me a pair of mallards. 

Valehouse Reservoir 

Valehouse Reservoir was very much not full. This was the sort of wet landscape I would expect to be fizzing with wagtails and might host a common sandpiper but there was nothing at all.

Red admiral 

Peak Naze from Rhodeswood Dam 

A beech wood separates the path beside Valehouse Reservoir from the traffic of Woodhead Road. The wood was busy with mixed tit flocks and woodpigeons. I found myself in the midst of quite a big flock — easily a dozen each of long-tailed tits and blue tits though it was the great tits and chiffchaffs making all the noise — and stood and watched the parade go by. I was rewarded by the addition of coal tits, goldcrests, a nuthatch and a willow warbler to the haul.

Valehouse Wood

Beware: deep water, no swimming

At last I spotted birdlife on the reservoir: a pair of mallards idling down a creek and a couple of cormorants dozing in the sun.

A swallow passed by overhead as I reached Valehouse Dam, the only hirundine all day. I had a choice: follow the path round past Bottoms Reservoir into Tintwistle and wait for the bus to Glossop or cross the dam and walk up the slope to the trail back to Hadfield Station. I chose the latter, it felt like I was more in control of my destiny. Besides which, the walking had been very good and all the joints were behaving themselves and I might have had a brainstorm and decide to walk over the tops to Stalybridge Country Park then remember there's no trains along that line this month.

Peregrine 

I crossed the dam and walked up the path beside Bottoms Reservoir. Halfway along a juvenile raven was making a lot of noise from the top of an electricity pylon. Just as I'd managed to shuffle along the path so I could see the raven behind the girders another raven flew in and upset a falcon I hadn't seen amongst the steelwork. I heard the cronk of the raven as it settled and the call of an annoyed falcon but it was only when I'd walked along a bit and looked back that I saw the peregrine sitting there. The whole episode reminded me of looking for that woodchat shrike in Cheshire.

Juvenile raven

Canada geese
¡No pasarán!

I walked up the field to the trail, barracked by Canada geese along the way. The hedgerows were lively with singing woodpigeons and robins, chiffchaffs and great tits squeaked, magpies rattled and blue tits quietly went about their business.

There were rather a lot more woodpigeons along the line on the way home.