Danebower

Did a new part of the Peak District for us at the weekend, across most of Derbyshire, beyond Buxton and to the border with Cheshire, where it's bleak and the birds are few - but what birds they are!

After all the driving we eventually found a pull in around Danebower and a path down into the valley and the old quarry.
Best of the day was a late summer male Ring Ouzel quite close and quite apparently ticked off with us. This was a lifer so we were altogether happier about the encounter.

Other notables came when a Raven sailed by quite low and flushed up a couple of Red Grouse, the corvid even seemed to lunge for one of them. Better views of grouse came later but the girlfriend had used up her camera battery taking admittedly pleasant portraits of sheep.

Several Wheatears were a nice reminder of Scotland.

Earlier in the week we had a Tawny Owl when we went a short way to Norwood to find darker skies for viewing the Perseid meteor shower. Too cloudy to see many of them, the owl was a cracker though, drove right by it first but it was bold enough to let us reverse the car back to have a good look of it perched on a telegraph pole, headlights illuminating the whole bird. They look so big when you get that kind of view.

Willow Warbler in the garden today, our first since the spring.

Chee Dale

Another weekend and another Derbyshire Dale. The girlfriend and I don't have so many more to go now. This time it was destination Chee Dale, weather fine and sunny, and me sort of ill*.


Truth be told, if you were to draw comparisons with more the renown dales like the Dove, Lathkill, Chee Dale struggles to compete for scenery and drama. The most exciting stretch is where the limestone gorge pushes walkers into the river (there are stepping stones, in case you're wondering). Still, it is of course pleasant and, psst, a little private, much quieter indeed than the aforementioned dales, being there is like being under a massive living green duvet. You may even have the dale to yourself during the week.

My bird list for the walk wasn't huge, it was however promising. This is a real Derbyshire Dale so yes, there is a resident pair of Dipper, but also Green Woodpecker, Chiffchaff, Buzzard and Grey Wagtail, show what promise lies within, and the day following a Barn Owl was reported in the area. You go there, you see something!

Speaking of something, here's a very unexpected something from our day at Chee Dale...



...there were bats!
(If you have any idea how difficult they are to photograph, you'll understand my glee in having anything to show you!)

Small size, rich brown fur, black face and ears, I'm saying they are Britain's most common species, Pipistrelle. Now I'm no expert but this isn't the first time I have seen bats out in daylight during the first half of spring. My own hypothesis is that they are coming out of hibernation near to starvation and desperate to feed. This early in the year it is still very cold at night with few flying insects yet emerged, so it makes sense for these bats to hunt during the day.
Equally, they might merely have been disturbed from their roost, though for me everything about their whirring behaviour suggested classic feeding technique around the woodland clearings. We saw just two individuals, one showing well enough we could follow its course right into the rockface, the minutest fissure, which rather makes sense as the cave systems around Derbyshire are particularly notable for their populations of hibernating bats.

At the head of Chee Dale is a Derbyshire Wildlife Trust reserve, 'internationally important' as the volunteer team working there told us. They also advised a return visit in late May when the wildflowers are apparently magnificent. I think we'll do just that!

* Preyed upon during the week by the norovirus/winter stomach bug, I was so happy to have the birdsong outside my bedroom window as I tossed and turned myself into a half comfortable knot. Even the Dunnock's slightly flat twittering was sweet enough to ease my suffering. So hail to the birds, they rock again!

Lathkill Dale

What unseasonal warmth! Did we sleep away the winter so quickly?

Well, I can tell you, it remains chilly of a morning down in the Derbyshire Dales. With my free weekends rapidly running out, the girlfriend and I chose a walk new to us, up and back down Lathkill Dale in the heart of the Peak. For a Sunday it was hardly busy, so the scarcity of birds was somewhere toward surprising. Two pairs of Dipper were skittish dazzlers, and the odd languid Buzzard sailed over late morning, beyond that Great Tits, Robins, Goldcrest and Song Thrush added birdsong to the atmospheric mists. Something about the acoustics up there, the slightest twitter is so rich!
Grey Wagtail were a notable absence, I suppose still huddling for warmth down on the broader reaches of the river where the sunshine can find them.


And now for something completely different... walking my niece to the park yesterday I observed behaviour from a pair of Carrion Crows quite new to me. One of the birds was eagerly pecking under the guttering of a house along the street, making me half-wonder whether it was searching for the eggs of early nesting sparrows. No, that wasn't it. Peck, peck, the crow grabbed and pulled out an enormous cob sandwich! Almost immediately thereafter in came the second bird, chasing away what was evidently an intruder raiding the food stash of the resident pair. It must have been watching them store the items there.
Of course I never have my camera when I really need it.

Back up Lathkill Dale, along the ridge above the valley, my first butterfly of the year, a stately Peacock for the Peaks.