Dovestone Reservoir

Mallards and ducklings

I had no intention of going for a walk round Dovestone Reservoir.

Something happens every year and it comes as a surprise every year. I've been wondering what's been up with me this week, until this morning when I went out into the back garden to see if we have a winner in the First Rose of the Year stakes (we do, it's "A Touch of Blue" and it's still only April). My eyes started to feel scratchy and the penny dropped. The pollen count is moderate but the grass-cutting count is high and the hay fever season is upon us once again. Like the first rose, it gets earlier every year. With me the first onset manifests as a feeling that all my strings have been cut and it never dawns on me it's hay fever until the itchy symptoms hit. You'd think I'd know by now. Having established I hadn't got the dreaded lurgi or Murgatroyd's twinges I could just ignore it and get on with things. I didn't have the energy for Plan A or Plan B for today so I got a pot of tea down me, got the lunchtime train into town and headed East, because I am very conscious nearly all this month's birdwatching has been westbound.

Reports early in the morning of a singing wood warbler that came and went quickly at Birchwood reminded me that there's sometimes a chance of finding one singing at Binn Green, by Dovestone Reservoir, and if I was tremendously lucky there might also be a ring ousel passing through. The odds were very long but a dawdle up Holmfirth Road in the sunshine had an appeal. I checked the bus times, I could get off the train at Mossley, get the 350 to The Clarence at the bottom of Holmfirth Road and save myself the walk across Greenfield. And so I did. It took about ten minutes longer but I had more energy to put into having a bit of an explore.

By Holmfirth Road 

The walk up Holmfirth Road was very pleasant indeed. The gradient creeps up on you, I tend not to realise until I notice I'm looking into tree canopies by the roadside. Along the way robins, wrens and blackcaps kept a constant chorus with solos by chaffinches, nuthatches and a coal tit. Woodpigeons clattered about in the trees, blue tits and great tits fidgeted through the undergrowth and the sheep in the fields were accompanied by jackdaws and the occasional mistle thrush. 

Looking over to Chew Valley
The sliver of blue is Dovestone Reservoir 

Dovestone Edge 

Dovestone Reservoir 

Rising higher, chiffchaffs and goldfinches, then willow warblers joined the chorus. Pairs of stock doves joined the woodpigeons and jackdaws in the fields, and some of the jackdaws had youngsters in tow. The wind was brisk, the orange tips and brimstones flying low to the grass to avoid the fate of the leaves whizzing and tumbling down the road. Stopping to admire the view and take photographs included the very real risk of being brained by pine cones.

As Dovestones Reservoir came properly into view so did the handful of Canada geese cruising about at the car park end.

Nicely weathered millstone grit atop Alderman's Hill

Approaching Binn Green I kept scanning the hilltops, just in case any ring ousels or wheatears wanted to make an appearance. They didn't, but don't look, don't see. The woodland was almost invisibly busy: the songscape was rich in robins, chiffchaffs, willow warblers, wrens and chaffinches; every so often I'd see a blue tit or great tit fidget through the conifers and a small flock of goldfinches fussed about the treetops. I almost missed the handful of siskins, their contact calls almost drowned out by a sudden rush of traffic noise.

Bilberry

Binn Green 

I pottered about the rocks at Binn Green admiring the view, listening to the birds, accidentally upsetting meadow pipits, and trying to use trees and rocks as windbreaks and finding it a lost cause. Trying to take photos of the scenery and the bilberries in flower whilst being buffeted by the wind was a challenge to put it mildly. Some hardy souls were walking the tops of Dovestone Edge opposite, I wondered if they might be slightly potty.

Halfway down the steps

I dropped down into relative shelter and found myself walking down the steps to the bottom. I wondered if this was wise, especially when the knees wondered how I was getting back up again. I wasn't going back up the steps, that was for sure. I'd have to walk up the service road back to Holmfirth Road. While I was here I thought I'd walk down to the dam between Yeoman Hey and Dovestone reservoirs and have a nosy.

Yeoman Hey Reservoir 

The wind was very bracing and bursts of white horses skimmed across the reservoirs. A house martin shot headlong into the wind and flew up the valley, the first of a small and fitful passage of house martins and sand martins heading for the wilds of Yorkshire. A couple of drake mallards cruised along the bankside on Yeoman Hey while a very busy pied wagtail fussed about the bottom of the dam, flitting from side to side. At first I thought he was servicing a nestful of mouths on one or other side but in the end I had to conclude he had the fidgets. As did a common sandpiper which tired of rummaging about the bankside and flew over the dam to bob about on the banks of Dovestone Reservoir.

Dovestone Reservoir 

I was going to turn round and walk back so I walked over the dam to the other side to admire the scenery and took the path that runs alongside Dovestone Reservoir to the car park. Like you do.

Reed bunting

There was barely a cloud in the sky, the sun was bright, the light electric, the scenery splendid and the wind at my back. I half-expected Lilian Gish to pass by in a flurry of sticks and leaves. I stopped by one of the long drains feeding the reservoir, just in case a dipper or grey wagtail might be taking advantage of the facilities. Robins and reed buntings caught insects on the pavings and pairs of goldfinches flew in for a drink. A very skittish grey wagtail was working the outflow at the end.

Dovestone Edge and inlet drain

Black-headed gulls and jackdaws passed overhead. Great tits, robins and willow warblers sang from the small plantations along the bank. Greenfinches and bullfinches called softly before disappearing into the trees as I passed, blackbirds and wrens struck poses and sang their defiance. Every so often I'd bump into a pheasant, more often I heard cocks in the background calling rivals into battle.

Dovestone Reservoir 

Walking by the reservoir 

Chew Valley 

Any thoughts that it might be less windy as I descended towards the car park and the dam were knocked on the head as I reached the mouth of the Chew Valley. The path turns 90°, instead of having the wind on my back blowing down from Yeoman Hey I had a much stronger wind blowing in my face from up tops. Any frivolous ideas that I might take the path and go up a bit into the valley swiftly put themselves back in the box.

A pair of mallards and their ducklings rummaged about the jackdaws in a field by the path. More mallards lounged on the bank by the car park and swallows whizzed about the dam. They looked and behaved like fixtures rather than the passing martins.

Walking back to Holmfirth Road
The topmost line of trees is the road. 

I walked up the lane and rejoined the songscape on Holmfirth Road which was as loud and busy as it was on my way up. I stopped to take a photo and was startled by a sharp tap on the top of my head as an oak tree jettisoned a leafy stick. "Berk!" said the sheep from across the road. They were probably right.

Greenfield

Jackdaw, Holmfirth Road 

It was a bright June day so I took advantage of the cat's going out to sun herself to get some domestic chores done without interference, or without as much interference as usual anyway, and it was mid-afternoon before I went for a walk. A conversation with a friend reminded me that with any luck the wood warbler should be arriving at Binn Green soon. It's probably a week or two early but I thought I'd go and have a shufti just in case I might strike lucky. I didn't but it was a good walk.

I got the train to Greenfield and walked the length of Chew Valley Road to The Clarence and thence up Holmfirth Road. It's easier on the feet to get the 350 bus to The Clarence from Ashton or Oldham but that's such a drag if you're coming from my direction. Greenfield's jackdaws were busy on the rooftops and the wrens, blackbirds and robins were in full song. 

There had been a refreshing breeze at the station. As I walked through Greenfield as the school run met the roadworks there wasn't any breeze and I wondered if a warm traipse up Holmfirth Road was such a good idea after all. I needn't have worried, as soon as I was out of town the breeze was back and it was very pleasant walking. (This is one of those walks that's along a pavement on a gentle gradient but looks like you've been yomping across The Great Outdoors when you show people the photos.)

Holmfirth Road 

Song thrushes and willow warblers joined the songscape in the trees by the road. A little higher up the lambs giddied about in the open fields while jackdaws fossicked about between them and pheasants called from the field margins.

Dove Stone Reservoir 

I chose not to take the road down to Dove Stone Reservoir's car park for a walk round the reservoir. It's a long drag down to the car park and it was already absolutely heaving with cars. I'll have to do it again some time, I still harbour ambitions of taking that path up the Chew Valley but that long drag to and from the car park puts me off. Perhaps I'll make a day of it in the Autumn.

Dove Stone Reservoir 

So I stayed on Holmfirth Road and walked up to Binn Green as planned. Magpies, chiffchaffs and chaffinches joined the songscape in the trees, the chiffchaffs almost drowning out the song thrushes. Way down on the reservoir a noisy pair of Canada geese were keeping clear of the passersby.

At Binn Green I ended up not going far from the car park. There's a little rise at the side that provides an overview of both Dove Stone and Yeoman Hey reservoirs as well as some lightly wooded slopes in an open area by the woodland. The woodland and the reservoirs were busy with walkers, not all of whom were noticeably quiet. 

Binn Green 

A spot in a hollow by a rocky outcrop baffled the sound from the car park and woodland and I settled for a long listen and scan round. The chiffchaffs sang incessantly, drowning out the blackbirds, willow warblers and coal tits most of the time. Every so often I'd hear a song thrush in the woodland or a mistle thrush in the trees down by Dove Stone Reservoir. There was something sounding like a singing ring ousel coming from the birch and bilberry scrub further down the road but it was being drowned out by the chiffchaffs. A bit of a wander that way didn't pick it up again and I'm not claiming it on the basis of the little I could hear. Coal tits and chiffchaffs fidgeted about in the small conifers by the road, great tits and robins in the bushes by the larger trees and wrens hopped in and out of the bilberry scrub.

Yeoman Hey Reservoir 

I wandered back to the road where a meadow pipit was vigorously parachute-singing over the hillside across the way. I could hear the contact calls of great tits and blue tits and the songs of coal tits, willow warblers and chiffchaffs in the woodland but no wood warbler today. A greenfinch flew over and a couple of goldfinches twittered and sang in the roadside trees. A trio of mallards and a couple of oystercatchers flew low over Dove Stone Reservoir and a flock of sand martins wheeled about the water margins at the dam.

Dove Stone Reservoir and the Chew Valley 

Dove Stone Reservoir 

A trio of house martins circled high over the Clarence while I waited for the 350 into Mossley for the train back. I hadn't bothered the year list any but it had been a very nice walk. As the train arrived at Trafford Park Station on my way home I added a couple of swifts to the year list.

I wouldn't have noticed this magpie's nest in Piccadilly Station had I not seen the magpie fly to it.

One that got away

Binn Green 

Yesterday afternoon when I was fossicking about by Binn Green car park I kept hearing a bit of song that I wasn't sure about. There wasn't much of it, and what there was was intermittent and interrupted, much in the way that a mistle thrush song never quite seems to get going. The song was coming from somewhere in a bit of birch scrub further along the road but I couldn't pin down the singer. A couple of blackbirds chased each other across the trees and a dark shape, probably another blackbird, flitted between some bilberry bushes but I couldn't find the mystery singer.

At the time I concluded that it was probably a song thrush warming up then getting distracted before getting into full song. The warm up practice notes of some birds can be puzzling, one of our local robins will do a few blackcap calls before starting singing in the afternoon and there have been a couple of times at Barton Clough where it's taken half a minute before I could be sure which of the singing thrushes was cranking up the engine. And I had a head full of wood warbler so wasn't paying all that much attention anyway. So I concluded it was probably a song thrush.

Sometimes these things nag at me. When I was writing up the last post last night I was reviewing the songscape in my head and something didn't quite fit. And there was something about that dark shape flitting between bilberry bushes that wasn't quite. The song sounded like a bit like a fragment of song thrush song, sung slow and sad. Two loud call notes repeated then a pause then a slow few seconds of something more complex like somebody learning and practicing an unfamiliar bit of music concentrating on the notes not the tempo. Sometimes it would just be the call notes.

I'd given up on the puzzle and was idly browsing bird reports later on when I noticed somebody mention seeing ring ousels further up Holmfirth Road. I hadn't been hearing and not recognising a ring ousel song had I? I had no idea what they sounded like. I went onto the Xeno-Canto web site and looked up some ring ousel songs. The first one I heard wasn't like the song I'd been fretting about. The second one was, though. And the third. And the fourth.

In all probability I'd been hearing a ring ousel singing, hadn't paid enough attention to the unconscious observation that this was something different and didn't put enough effort into finding the singer. It happens, it's part of the game. Usually it'll be a fairly common bird and I'll realise what I hadn't been registering when I hear another one singing or calling a couple of hundred yards down the path.

So I dipped on a ring ousel. Ah well. Next time I'm up that way I almost certainly won't remember what its song sounds like but if I hear something unfamiliar I will remember to check that it isn't a ring ousel.

Dove Stone

Red-legged partridge 

I slapped the sun cream on and set out on what was forecast to be a not bad day, remembering to take my cap to keep the sun off my bald patch and the rain, too, if I was unlucky. Both knees were aching and needed a bit of exercise in them so I thought a few inclined planes would be in order. A wood warbler had been reported singing in the usual territory by Dove Stone Reservoir so I thought I'd try and find it.

I got the train to Greenfield and walked through town to Holmfirth Road. I could have waited twenty minutes for the bus but it's less than a mile onto the walk. I checked out the canal and the rivers for grey wagtails or dippers, just in case, but no joy.

Chew Valley from Holmfirth Road 

It was pleasant walking weather and after the first rather steep hundred yards the rest was a nice gentle incline up to the car park at Binn Green where the wood warbler can be heard.

Beside Holmfirth Road 

There were plenty of jackdaws and woodpigeons in the fields on the approach to Dove Stone Reservoir. But no starlings, which struck me as odd. Blackbirds and song thrushes sang in the trees accompanied by robins, chiffchaffs and willow warblers. A nuthatch made sure I hadn't noticed it was using an old woodpecker's nest for its own purposes.

Chew Valley 

Looking over at Chew Valley I felt guilty for not having had a walk up there in decades. I really should, it's just a long drag up from the station to the car park by the reservoir where the path up the valley begins. I'll have to get the bus to the Clarence and start from there when I finally get round to it. I can't say I fancy the walk back up Park Road, mind.

I'd spotted a couple of pheasants in the fields and I'd accidentally spooked a buzzard which was feeding on beetles in the sheep droppings before it noticed me coming and flew sharply off, I almost overlooked the red-legged partridge sitting on the other side of the wall. I only noticed it when I was putting the lens cap back on the camera after taking a photo.

Dove Stone Reservoir 

Drawing level with the reservoir chaffinches and blackcaps joined in with the singing in the trees. I thought for a moment I could hear a cuckoo but at that moment half a dozen cars came hurtling down the road, drowning out all save the song thrushes. Once they'd passed I tried again but could only hear the yapping of a distant dog.

As I approached the marker for the start of the Peak District National Park I heard a faint trill in the trees ahead which made me prick up my ears. I couldn't catch it again but strongly suspected it was the wood warbler, which was encouraging. Just as encouraging was hearing an unambiguous call from a cuckoo somewhere in the trees on the other side of the woodland below the road.

Binn Green 

I arrived at the Binn Green car park where the first bird to greet me was a coal tit wanting me to move on so it could visit its nest, which I did. It had chosen a tiny crack in a dry stone wall for its nest hole.

Binn Green 

The trees were lively with birdsong. The blackbirds, song thrushes, chiffchaffs and willow warblers were joined by chaffinches, robins and a mistle thrush. I've been giving the Merlin app another try so I thought I'd let it sift through the songscape. It struggled to find the song thrushes and chiffchaffs but it picked up a couple of blackcaps before I did. I think the dunlin it flagged up was a bit of road traffic noise. 

I didn't need the app to find the wood warbler, it was trilling in the conifers by the car park. There's something almost grasshopper-like about the song, quite different to our other leaf warblers. Hearing it and seeing it were quite different things, despite the relative lack of leaf cover in the conifers. A moment's quick glimpse as it flitted between trees was the best I was getting today.

The cuckoo was singing from this plantation on the other side of the reservoir

I had a nosy round, bumping into great tits and pairs of chaffinches in the undergrowth along the way. A cuckoo started calling. It may have been the same bird as before but this time it was singing from the plantation over on the other side of the reservoir. I looked out from the viewpoint by the car park but couldn't find it.

Binn Green 

I was back in the car park and I tried and failed to find the wood warbler as it sang in the trees. I had a bit more luck looking in from the road, a full half-second's sighting before it disappeared into the canopy of a conifer. I was happy just to be able to hear it.

Red-legged partridges

The walk back down Holmfirth Road was much the same as on the way up. The clouds had rolled in a bit which made for a few dramatic lighting effects on the landscape. A pair of Canada geese bobbed about in the middle of the reservoir, the only birds I saw on it all afternoon. Even the passing black-headed gulls kept on passing. The red-legged partridge I'd passed on the way up was joined by a friend.

Dove Stone Reservoir 

Holmfirth Road 

The sum total amount of tawny owl I've seen this year

I walked the way down into Greenfield, got the 350 bus from the Clarence into Ashton-under-Lyne and thence home. As hillwalking goes the afternoon had been a lazy doddle but it had sorted out the aching knees and the year list had been boosted up to 181.

Dove Stone

By Binn Green car park

It had been raining stair rods all morning and I was getting bored with it so I checked the Met Office app to see if anywhere locally was any better. It was all much the same though with a promise that it would get better by teatime.

So it was that I got the mid-afternoon train into town and went out to Greenfield with a view to seeing if I could find the wood warbler that's set up a singing territory in the car park above Dove Stone Reservoir.

Dove Stone Reservoir and the Chew Valley 

By the time I stepped out of Greenfield Station the weather had calmed down and though there were plenty of dark clouds around none of them looked particularly threatening. I walked down to Holmfirth Road but instead of turning off onto Bank Lane to go down to the reservoir I carried on up the road. I haven't done this before, I wish I had as the views are splendid.

At the bottom of Holmfirth Road there were plenty of song thrushes and great tits singing in the trees. Further up, as the the trees thinned out on the steep slopes grazed by sheep these were replaced by mistle thrushes and coal tits. Blackbirds, robins and especially jackdaws were constant companions. 

Dove Stone Reservoir

The trees thickened up again and chiffchaffs and willow warblers tried to make themselves heard over a singing mistle thrush. It was interesting to watch a nuthatch demonstrating that fossicking about for food works the same way on a moss-covered wall as on a moss-covered tree trunk. (And frustrating because it wouldn't stay still for a photo.)

There's a small conifer wood by the approach to Binn Green car park, and the entry into the Peak District National Park and this is where the wood warbler had been reported. I hadn't realised I'd reached my destination until I heard it singing as I was scanning the trees following a small bird that turned out to be a coal tit. There was about five seconds of song from somewhere in the middle of the wood. At this point I was identifying it by a process of elimination rather than anything more positive, I don't bump into wood warblers often and when I do they're usually quietly feeding up on passage. The bird moved on, the next song was further away, so I carried on to the car park and had a look round from up there.

Looking towards Greenfield Reservoir

There were plenty of chaffinches about and almost as many pheasants as lambs in the field. A few blue tits and coal tits quietly foraged in the trees and a willow warbler sang from somewhere halfway up the steps down to the lane below. I found a seat and did a search on my phone to confirm that what I'd been hearing was a wood warbler. 

I decided that rather than traipsing round the wood trying to find the bird I'd be better off staying put, keeping my ears open and try to track it down by sound. It didn't take many minutes for me to be joined by a singing chaffinch and a couple more willow warblers started singing in the tree canopy. After about five minutes I heard the wood warbler singing again, this time from somewhere near the top of the steps. Could I find it? No I could not. I kept still in the hopes that it might come closer or that I might see it flitting about but no such luck: a few minutes later it was singing from down near the lane. I lingered awhile, then had a bit of a wander but didn't hear it again.

Yeoman Hay Reservoir

I started walking back down Holmfirth Road, pausing only to stop and listen to the wood warbler singing from where I'd been ten minutes earlier. I looked at the weather and looked at the time and decided I wasn't for spending any more time playing peep-oh! with the bird today. 

The reservoir had been barren of birds on the way up, on the way down I noticed a couple of Canada geese and two drake mallards on the margins and an oystercatcher flew across the water.

The mistle thrushes in the field dropping down to Bank Lane included a couple of well-grown spotty youngsters. A nuthatch foraging in the trees at the junction with Bank Lane obviously had mouths to feed.

Rather than getting the train back I walked down to The Clarence and got the 350 bus to Ashton and thence home. I'd had a good couple of hours' easy toddling about in nice scenery in fair weather. The drake mandarin duck I spotted on the canal as we went through Mossley was a bonus.