Lockdown Walks-A Retrospective. 13th - 16th June 2020

 13th June 2020

Stoney Wood and the paths between the High Peak Trail and Carsington Water. 

I took a stroll out of the front door this time, up through Stoney Wood, where the butterfly munching Spotted Flycatcher was up and about, and a Kestrel hovered. I made my way along the left hand path through the disused quarries, the one with the tunnel and the barbed wire, and through the scarred and uneven landscape. 

I crossed the road into the sheep field, and took the path down through the fields.  

I ate my lunch in a field overlooking some cattle, where a stunning male Redstart darted between the wind-bent Hawthorns. A Matriarchal looking cow made confrontational noises at me. I must confess after the Bull incident, I was a little averse to mixing with her, so I kept out of her way. 

Many of the thistles in these fields had been sprayed, bent over and yellowing, even as Butterflies tried to feed on the blossoms. However there was a glorious patch of Scabious and Meadowsweet, attended by beautiful Small Tortoiseshell butterflies.

Small Tortoiseshell on Scabious. 

Stoney Wood Birds: Kestrel, Jackdaw, Wren, Spotted Flycatcher

Stoney Wood Butterflies: Common Blue (1) Small Heath (1) 

Stoney Wood-High Peak Trail Butterflies Meadow Brown (6) Speckled Wood (1) Small Tortoiseshell (9) Red Admiral (2) Small Copper (1)

Speckled Wood Butterfly. Only as I add the photo to the blog do I notice it has no antennae. Odd. 

High Peak Trail-Hopton Environs Butterflies: Meadow Brown (3) Red Admiral (1) Small Tortoiseshell (7) Common Blue (1) Small Heath (1) Large Skipper (1) 

Birds: Pheasant, Buzzard, Black Headed Gull, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Woodpigeon, Kestrel, Magpie, Jackdaw, Raven, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Skylark, Swallow, House Martin, Whitethroat, Mistle Thrush, Redstart, Pied Wagtail, Goldfinch.

Skylark

14th June 2020

Carsington Water

I hitched a lift to Carsington Water with Lizzie and Natalie, and arrived in the Visitor's Centre car park. It was sunny, humid and disconcertingly populous. Inevitably visitors had invaded the foreshore and their dogs were in the water. The tranquility of lockdown, for the birds were at an end, and Oystercatchers circled, and alarm called constantly as witless humanity trampled what had been their quiet nest site. 

I walked across the Dam Wall, around to Millfields, on the far side of the lake, As soon as I had cleared the car park, the place seemed deserted. A Lesser Stag Beetle was a lovely sighting. The Black Headed Gull Colony appeared to be having a good year, with several young birds on the water, and Great Crested Grebes attended their growing 'humbugs.' Juvenile Blackcaps were out and about too, in the hedges. Willow, Blue and Long-Tailed Tits had begun moving with their broods in their small family groups typical for the later part of the summer.

Lesser Stag Beetle. 

The weather was punctuated by frequent bouts of heavy rain. A man sheltered his dog under his jacket as his shirt sleeves got soaked. Love. 

I walked through the mature woodland, on the less explored side of the reservoir, and saw a field vole pootling about on the path, as if without a care in the world, perhaps a youngster naive to the risk of predation it faced out in the open. 

I waited at Sheepwash for my lift home and watched the Pipistrelles zipping about among the trees, a larger bat or two among them, perhaps Noctules, and a Tawny Owl called in the descending gloom. Rain began to fall. 

Mammals: Pipistrelle, Noctule (?) Rabbit, Field Vole, Grey Squirrel

Butterflies: Common Blue, Small Tortoiseshell, Meadow Brown. 

Other Invertebrates: Oedemira nobilis, Lesser Stag Beetle, Black Soldier Beetle, and too many biting Horseflies. 

Birds: Canada Goose, Barnacle Goose, Greylag Goose, Mute Swan, Gadwall, Mallard, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Pheasant, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Buzzard, Moorhen, Coot, Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Redshank, Black Headed Gull, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Woodpigeon, Tawney Owl, Swift, Kestrel, Jay, Magpie, Jackdaw, Willow Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Swallow, House Martin, Long Tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Reed Warbler, Blackcap, Wren, Treecreeper, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Robin, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Pied Wagtail, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Reed Bunting. 

16th June 2020

Cromford Canal via Bolehill

On a sunny afternoon  I walked up to Bolehill, via the fields behind the Railway station. A dead Bullfinch on the footpath was a sad sight, the body apparently undamaged, perfect. Perhaps a cat kill, or a window collision casualty. On a happier note, the Siskins were back again, the first time I had seen these charming little arboreal finches, green and yellow and streaky. The flock appeared to include fledgelings, suggesting local breeders. To a Southerner, seeing these finches in summer still feels exotically Northern. There was a juvenile Goldfinch in among them. 

I marched up past the Trig point, and nodded at a few walkers, before I wandered down to the High Peak Trail, under an amenable sky of bright white cloud. I joined a path down the grassy, open slopes, enjoying glorious views of Cromford and the Heights beyond. There were confiding Meadow Pipits posing on the rocks, often overlooked but such smart little passerines up close, and Small Heath butterflies fluttered in the grass. I reached Intake Lane, and joined the canal at its head in Cromford. Geese and their goslings hung around outside what, in a normal summer, would be busy food outlets. I followed the towpath, now in sunshine, passing a few fine Cardinal Beetles, and a shoal of small Perch, boldly striped. I reached the High Peak junction, and here a shoal of Roach, pretty, silver fish, very common in such waterways, hung in the crystal clear water.

Meadow Pipit

On the river Derwent, from the bridge behind the sewerage farm, I paused to watch a beautiful family of Grey Wagtails, three fledged juveniles and two adults. These beautiful wagtails, which are often associated with running water like the Derwent, are somewhat badly named. Though they have a deep, smart grey back, their undersides are bright yellow in the male, who also in the breeding season has a deep black bib, and lemon yellow in the female. They are not to be confused with yellow wagtail, the charming running dandelions associated with short grazed grassland.  As I watched these birds, another passerine appeared among them, a small, stocky brown bird with a white belly, bobbing on a rock, before dipping into the fast flowing water, pausing with its head submerged, before briefly disappearing from view in the current, popping up again on another rock. A Dipper! Dippers are the only passerine in Britain to regularly hunt for food, usually small invertebrates, underwater. As I watched the dipper through my binoculars, a flash of blue darted through my vision.  A Kingfisher! I watched it fly off downriver, a stripe of electric blue between whirring wings. Three remarkable and charismatic species of fast flowing water, viewed from this one spot in just a few seconds. 

I caught my breath and walked up a little further along the canal, hoping to see some of these birds again from the aqueduct. The dipper alone was visible, and I watched it busily feeding for a short while. I spoke briefly with a gentleman from Ambergate, sharing our sightings, and he recalled a time when the canal was wildly overgrown, largely abandoned by industry and not yet rediscovered by recreation, and hosted impressive Pike, a species no longer regularly seen there. 

The walk beside the canal revealed few new bird species and I did not see the Kingfisher again, so I made my way back over the fields as the sun went down. When I returned home, Natalie informed me that a tremendous rainstorm had fallen. Only a couple of miles away, on the other side of the hill, it had passed me my entirely as I enjoyed riverside avian splendour.

A Kingfisher. Photo taken at Lakenheath Fen, Cambridgeshire, in January. 

Birds Seen: Canada Goose +fl, Mallard, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard, Moorhen, Black Headed Gull, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Swift, Kingfisher, Kestrel, Jay, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Sand Martin, Swallow, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Wren, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, Robin, Dipper, Grey Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Chaffinch, Linnet, Siskin. 

Fishes: Perch, Roach.