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.

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.

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.