Sett Valley

Juvenile great spotted woodpecker, Bluebell Wood

Well, what a ropey old night's sleep that was!  It was a cooler night with a nice breeze and the rolling thunder was forecast to carry on until dawn. I dozed off peacefully enough but was woken up by the thunderstorm being on top of us. I was woken not by the thunder but by the dead still humid air. It moved on and conditions became more bearable but could I get back to sleep? Could I buttons. So I charted the course of the dawn chorus from the blackbird kicking in at five to four, the blackbird duel thereafter, the robin putting in the first of its occasional placeholders just before dawn, the wren and the blackcap singing solidly for an hour and the two woodpigeons singing at each other from the chimney pot. The spadgers waited until six to set out in the world and I for one couldn't blame them.

I didn't have the energy for anything ambitious so the three planned days out that have been nagging at me all week stay parked on the shelves. The trajectory of my birdwatching is North and West because that's the prevailing pattern of the local public transport, the more so since my local trains stopped calling at Deansgate so I've lost that simple cross-city connection. In an effort to push against that a bit I decided I'd go over to Hayfield and have a leisurely dawdle along a short piece of the Sett Valley Trail.

Jackdaw, New Mills

I got the Sheffield train to New Mills Central and walked up to the bus stop on the corner. The 60, 61 and 358 go to Hayfield and are pretty regular, the only pitfall is making sure you're getting the bus going the right way — Hayfield or Glossop, not Buxton or Stockport, they all go from the same bus stop.

I got off the bus at Hayfield Bus Station — a bus stop in the car park — and walked over to the corner where the trail starts. It was a Very lovely afternoon but not as blisteringly hot as it has been. A party of swifts screamed overhead, there was a reassuringly rich songscape — blackbirds, greenfinches, wrens, woodpigeons, blackcaps, chaffinches and a great tit — and a nice, easy walk ahead.

Sett Valley Trail 

The hedgerows were busy with robins, wrens and blue tits, and jackdaws chattered as they passed overhead. There was more of the same as I walked into Bluebell Wood, with the addition of family parties of great tits, the weird calls of nuthatches and the songs of chiffchaffs, dunnocks and a song thrush. I would have overlooked the great spotted woodpecker nest, I don't go looking for nests as a rule, but the incessant calling of the youngster stuck in the doorway made it impossible to miss or ignore.

Juvenile great spotted woodpecker 

Bluebell Wood 

It was nice to see some tadpoles in the little pond. All the likely places I've checked out to date have been the casualties of a dry Spring.

Common frog tadpoles

Large whites and orange tips fluttered about the more open parts of the wood. A bullfinch wheezed out a song somewhere in the canopy then stopped short as if it had run out of breath. The jackdaws and woodpigeons had gone quiet. A sparrowhawk casually skimmed the treetops and headed into the village and the soundscape resumed. All except the bullfinch, which was probably exhausted by its effort.

Bluebell Wood 

Sett Valley Trail 

Across the Sett Valley 

I rejoined the trail and walked along as the valley opened up and the river and hills could be seen behind the wayside trees. Swallows and house martins flew high over the valley and a kestrel hovered over the fields over the other side. I scanned the riverside and was puzzled to see the tops of orange heads poking out of the long grass. There were four drake mandarin ducks loafing with a few drake mallards.

Birch Vale Reservoir 

Birch Vale Reservoir is small but picturesque as you look down on it from the trail. A couple of mallards dozed under the trees on the little island. I walked the length of the reservoir then decided to turn and head back to the bus stop. I was out for a bit of a toddle rather than a proper walk. On the way back there was a lot more of the same, with the addition of a young great spotted woodpecker bouncing through the canopy of a small oak tree at least as inelegantly as any woodpigeon, and a coal tit singing by the old level crossing.

Birch Vale Reservoir 

I really don't know why I don't do this walk more often. The scenery is lovely, the birdwatching is good and the walking a doddle. I didn't have long to wait for the Glossop bus. I counted the jackdaws on the rolling green Peak District countryside then got the trains home from Glossop.

Sett Valley Trail

Sett Valley Trail 

The twenty-nine large gulls on the school playing field were all lesser black-backs, most of them adults. The change of season after the solstice was marked by the arrival of black-headed gulls, five adults in a group to one side, a juvenile sitting amongst the lesser black-backs that would have gleefully wolfed it down scant weeks ago.

One way or another I'd sabotaged my plans for the day, such as they were, and in the end I was driven out of the house by the cat. I'm not sure if I've got the black dog on me because the cat's being as irritating as hell or if I'm finding the cat so irritating because I've got the black dog on me, either way it's not healthy and a break in the fresh air would be no bad thing.

Hayfield 

I drifted onto the train to Hadfield but decided that I wouldn't have a toddle down the Longendale Trail, I'd do that explore of the Sett Valley Trail from Hayfield I promised myself last Autumn. This is another flat bit of Derbyshire walking, this time it's the old New Mills to Hayfield line. I got the 61 from Glossop to Hayfield Bus Station (which is a bus stop in a car park, but it's a nice bus stop in a car park). I strolled down to the end of the car park and joined the trail. Along the way the sun broke out as the wind broke up the clouds.

Bluebell Wood 

The singing blackbirds and goldfinches were joined by a blackcap and a couple of woodpigeons as I started the trail. I dropped down into the Bluebell Wood Nature Reserve where chiffchaffs, robins and wrens joined the soundscape. It was hard to spot any of the singers and well nigh impossible to spot anything silently going about its business. Most of the movement in the trees was leaves rustling in the wind and most of the movement in the undergrowth was bees and flies and the occasional large white butterfly. The great tits and chaffinches I picked up by their contact calls.

I took the little diversion to the small woodland pond. It was a bit late in the day and cool to expect much in the way of dragonflies or damselflies but I hung around for ten minutes just in case.

Sett Valley Trail 

Rejoining the trail I bumped into a pair of red admirals chasing each other round the wayside nettles. A family of long-tailed tits bounced about the trees by an old level crossing, the adults keeping to cover and the youngsters flitting about willy-nilly. They came very close to the path but were too fidgety for the camera. The singing coal tit stayed high in the tree tops.

The  long-tailed tits weren't being very cooperative…

…moving or ducking behind foliage whenever the camera got them in focus 

A little further on I stopped and watched a juvenile robin fossicking about in the verge. Like many a small bird on the ground it wasn't unduly perturbed by human passersby but slipped into cover whenever a dog walked by.

Juvenile robin

Looking across the Sett Valley 

The trees thinned on the approach to Birch Vale Reservoir. A singing chaffinch joined the songscape and jackdaws called as they flew overhead between fields. 

Birch Vale Reservoir 

The wind scudded over the top of the reservoir as I looked it over. I told myself that Pennine reservoirs can be a bit sterile in Summer then the next gap in the trees presented a herd of Canada geese and a crowd of eclipse drake mallards that had been obscured by an island.

Canada geese 

Meadow browns and ringlets joined the large whites and red admirals flitting about the wayside. I had been surprised not to see any speckled woods about, and nor did I see any all afternoon. I did, just, manage to see the blue tits silently flitting about in an elder bush. 

The trail curved round and met Station Road. I checked the bus times, if I walked down to Hayfield Road I'd have about twenty minutes to wait either for the 61 back to Glossop or the 358 to Stockport. Or I could carry on down the trail and catch a bus further up or walk into New Mills and get the train back to Manchester. I crossed the road and rejoined the trail.

Sett Valley Trail 

It was nice walking. The blackbirds, woodpigeons and wrens were doing all the singing, every so often joined by a great tit. It was pure chance I spotted the chiffchaffs and the bullfinch in the trees. I reached the next ex-level crossing and checked the buses again. If I turned and walked up to Hayfield Road I'd have about five minutes to wait for a bus. So I did.

Walking up to Hayfield Road 

The lane rose from the trees and passed a meadow busy with woodpigeons. The first swift of the day swooped by at treetop height. The big peacock caterpillars on the wayside nettles looked ready to pupate any time soon, they were on the move and not stopping to eat.

Peacock caterpillar 

I got to Hayfield Road and got the 358 into Stockport and thence home, feeling considerably better for having had the exercise and a bit better-tempered with an old cat.