Lockdown Walks-A Retrospective. 2nd May 2020

 Middleton Moor, 2nd May 2020

We strolled from the front door once again, walking up via Stoney Wood, and the Middle Peak Quarry, up through the sheep fields to the Middleton Moor trig point. The now familiar Redstart pair were there again, and several Whitethroats sang. The Trig Point boasts fascinating views, to Heague Windmill, Belper and Derby, to Black Rocks and Alport heights, and over Carsington Water.  The sky rang to the sound of Skylarks, and the Cowslips still bloomed, a green carpet studded with pale lemon yellow flowers.

Middleton Moor.

  A highlight was a pair of Wheatears close to Middleton Top. A friend of mine had reported them to be a few days previously so it was great to connect with them at last. Wheatears are a charismatic summer visitor to the uplands, a long distance migrant which winters in Africa. In the breeding season it has a circumpolar distribution; some individuals of this species cross the Atlantic twice a year, all return to Africa for the winter, from Atlantic Canada and Alaska. The English name is a Bowdlerisation of its old name White-arse, so called on account of its distinctive white rump, a moniker which Victorians deemed too crude.

Wheatear.

Orange tip butterflies were abundant in the Dale, and the first of the leggy St Mark's flies, named for the date on which they tend to appear, were on the wing near Middleton Top.

View from Middleton Moor.

Birds Seen: Buzzard, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Magpie, Jackdaw, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Skylark, Swallow, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Blackbird, Robin, Redstart, Wheatear, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Meadow Pipit. Chaffinch, Linnet, Goldfinch. 

Wirksworth to Harborough Rocks, 3rd May 2020

I strolled up in the afternoon, on a largely overcast day, to the High Peak Trail via Stoney Wood and the Middlepeak Quarry, saying hello to my familiar Redstart again as I passed. I passed two Carsington turnings and took a side path into the woods, eventually finding myself among mighty earthworks at the foot of towering wind turbines. I met Lizzie and Natty there, who confirmed the footpaths ahead were impassible, indeed I later found they were in the process of being diverted. We returned to the High Peak Trail and continued, until we reached the permissive path up Harborough Rocks. We passed the mouth of the cave there, a huge, open space in the rock, apparently used by our ancient ancestors, and occasionally occupied by singing Pagans. The rocks are usually popular with climbers but today they were quiet.

View from Harborough Rocks

We carried on up to the Trig Point atop Harborough Rocks. The view was impressive as any of the local trigs, with the Peak District spread out to the North and West. 

Whitethroats and a Garden Warbler sang in the bushes beside the High Peak Trail.   St Mark's flies were very abundant, especially in the disturbed habitat around the Wind Turbines.

St Mark's Fly (Bibio marci)

Birds Seen: Pheasant, Buzzard, Black Headed Gull, Kestrel, Magpie, Jackdaw, Raven, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Whitethroat, Wren, Blackbird, Robin, Redstart, Meadow Pipit, Goldfinch. 

Wirksworth to Near Alport, 6th May 2020

Today I took the 'exit' from Wirksworth near the Leisure Centre, and strolled up through a field, now with fresh, flighty cattle, crossed through the bluebell wood near Hardhurst Farm, and joined Hay Lane, where Swallows and House Martins were back to nest under the eaves, and several linnets, their chests flushed red in the sunshine as if they wore strawberries, resplendent in the sunshine. 

Nearing the 'heights,' at the junction of Hay and Knob Lane, I heard the distinctive bubbling calls of Curlew, a threatened upland breeding bird. I struck out down a footpath, following the sound. I passed through fields and a small woodland to near the Bull pub. A pair of Curlew could be seen in arcing, nervous flight, bubbling away in alarm. The cause of their distress was a pair of Buzzards circling on the thermals. 

Returning, I found Curlews, perhaps the same individuals, down in a field by Knob Lane, probing in the grass and earth with their decurved bills for worms. For a man from Essex, seeing Curlews in Summer in Derbyshire is always something of a treat, and it strikes a curious chord in the memory. For me these are a bird of the winter wetlands, the grey of open mudflats and winter skies a more typical backdrop to the sight of one of these large, long billed waders than green fields and blue skies. They are a bird of the mud and salicornia and biting cold, a predator of ragworms and not earthworms. Their feeding behaviour, walking and probing with their long bills is strikingly similar despite the great difference between their summer and winter habitats. To me their call has always been a sound of the estuaries, of the Blackwater, the Crouch and the Thames, and not a sound of the hills. A world away in a few months and a hundred miles. 

On account of my unscheduled trip down Knob Lane to homesick nostalgia I did not climb to Alport heights this time, instead returning down to Gorsey Bank, passing New Buildings where a Treecreeper was feeding young in a tree-hole. The Dandelions and Gorse have begun to go over, but Forget-me-Nots, Bluebells and Red and White Campion were in flower.

Red Campion and Forget me Nots

Birds Seen: Mallard, Pheasant, Buzzard, Curlew, Black Headed Gull, Woodpigeon, Swift, Kestrel, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Great Tit, Swallow, House Martin, Long Tailed Tit, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Whitethroat, Wren, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Robin, House Sparrow, Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail, Chaffinch, Linnet, Goldfinch. 

Butterflies Seen: Orange Tip, Peacock, Small White, Green Veined White, Speckled Wood. 

Odonata: Large Red Damselfly

Mammals: Grey Squirrel, Field Vole, Rabbit. 

Orange Tip Butterfly.

The Hala Starling Experience

The last few evenings, on the way home from uni, assuming I’ve coincided my arrival with the fading light, I have had the honour of what I can only describe as the Hala Green Starling Experience.  Hundreds, or thousands, of the birds have taken to roosting in the bushes which separate our gardens from those of the houses which back on to us, and, morning and evening, their flocks arrive and depart. When I was a kid I clearly remember walking with my dad and watching murmurations of starlings blackening the sky in Romford. The birds would roost in the trees which grew out of the roundabout, the junction of underpasses outside the library.  This must have been the late 1980s or very early 1990s, and birds change their distributions, and now, as far as I’m aware, spectacular murmurations in Metropolitan Essex are pretty much unknown. The Starling has declined in numbers by something like 70% since then, and murmurations do not happen over metropolitan Essex any more. 

Over suburban Lancaster, however, the situation seems to be rather different. There have been some huge flocks these past few days, I cannot hazard a guess as to how many birds were involved, but it must have been in the thousands, cloud-like flocks twisting and changing shape, the birds moving in close formation, coming in through the darkening sky, making several passes of the roosting bushes, a few individuals dropping out and perching there. A sparrowhawk at one point landed on one of the bushes into which they’d been flying and put some of the starlings up. Those deeper in the branches, presumably feeling protected by their enclosed position. The hawk went after those in flight, which swiftly joined the murmuration.  It went in for an attack and the birds avoided it, in a coordinated formation, a burst of speed moving like a wave through the flock. The predator seemed to manage to grab one, and was off pretty quickly.

Despite the paintwork on my car appearing to pay the price of these spectacular murmurations, it feels like something of an honour to watch such a wildlife spectacle over my home of an evening.  They continue chattering in their roost sites well into the night, especially if disturbed. Starlings generally behave like this only in winter, and the flock may have included birds which bred over a wide area, perhaps many of them breeding beyond these shores. Their murmurations are unpredictable, they may use one site for several nights in a row, and then, perhaps in response to weather or feeding conditions, they are not seen there for some time. Certainly, come the spring they will disperse again to their breeding habitats, and will perhaps disperse or move elsewhere long before that, but for the past few days the Hala Green Starling Experience has been a wonderful, and nostalgic, suburban wildlife spectacle!

Species Involved: European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)