Wanderings in the Strangest Summer- Some local-ish walks.

 August 1st 2020.

I went to Matlock Bath by mistake.  Not long after the great and, as it transpired, temporary lifting of restrictions. I was not ready to encounter humans in such densities,  and I swiftly realised my mistake, and took a wander homeward.

I walked down by the river,  through the parks beside the rushing Derwent in the sunshine, where a dipper bobbed about. I climbed back up onto the road, and wandered along it, past the old Mill building.  I picked up the Cromford Canal Towpath, eerily quiet in comparison to the bustle of Matlock Bath Promenade, following it to the High Peak Junction, where I wandered through the sheep field, encountering a beautiful fledgeling Redstart, beginning to moult into the winter plumage of an adult male. Its sibling was not far away. In moult they bore a curious resemblance to Common Rock Thrushes, but smaller, perching on the dry stone walls, perhaps to scale with Alpine boulders. These tiny birds, just a couple of months old, were preparing for a long and perilous journey to subsaharan Africa. Also preparing to leave were the massed House Martins and Sand Martins which zipped about around the oak tree beside the camp site, where a few brave campers took advantage of the recent reopening.

Selected sightings (no list made) Kestrel, Woodpigeon, Mallard, Dipper, Black Headed Gull, Redstart, Pied Wagtail, House Martin, Swallow, House Martin. 

Cutthroat Bridge, Derwentside, 6th August 2020

I parked up in the layby beside Cutthroat Bridge, a bridge over a small beck, named for a grizzly robbery which took place there in 1635, where a man was left dead, or deprived of speech, depending on which version you read, by mysterious assailants. A second murder, the dumped body of a Mancunian gangster in the 1990s, adds to its grim mystique.  Counterintuitively, the place had quite a calm, wild energy about it, a gentle summer breeze, the heather in flower, and a Kestrel hovering.

Calluna blooming on the Derwent Moors. 

 I strolled uphill, among the flowering Ling Heather, Calluna vulgaris, and the Cross-Leaved Heath, Erica tetralix, the latter now beginning to go to seed. This was Grouse country, and sadly would all to soon be rumbling with the sound of guns as the toffs and London city boys hit the moors to shoot fledgelings out of the sky for shits and giggles. I passed a number of Grouse shooting butts, well maintained, almost luxurious with gravel floors and embossed door numbers. Nice of them, I thought, to provide so many public toilets so close to the Inglorious 12th.  Even in this magnificent, rugged landscape The moors bore the angular scars of controlled burns, in which floristic diversity is sacrificed for maximum densities of grouse for shooting.

Red Grouse on the Derwent Moors. 

Fox Moth larva on the Derwent Moors

As I ascended the moor, I could not help but acknowledge that, despite my distain for grouse shooting, this place was extraordinarily beautiful. Expansive views opened up, of the Derwent reservoirs, a Hobby pursued some hirundines around the granite outcrops. Meadow Pipits were busy, shuttling back and forth with food parcels. The views were enthralling, almost defying description, a vast landscape of hills and shining water. 

I reached the National Trust's land at the Derwent Estate, where I encountered my only actual Red Grouse of the walk, a female, who raised a head above the heather and looked at me quizzically. I walked on to a trig point, scrambling up the rocks for a selfie with it, and enjoyed a commanding view, now taking in part of the city of Sheffield, and viewed the Dark Peaks from their heart. On my return the sun was beginning to dip, and the reservoirs shone, bright glare of their mirror surface.

Yes, a place of remarkable beauty. And in sharp contrast to my ill advised trip to Matlock Bath, I saw barely a soul today. Just space and lakes and heather.

View of the Derwent Reservoirs from Derwent Edge. Or something. Who cares what a place is really called anyway. 

Birds Seen: Buzzard, Kestrel, Hobby, Raven, Great Tit, Swallow, Long-tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Wren, Meadow Pipit. 

Lathkill Dale 7th August 2021

On a very hot, sunny day Natty and I strolled down from Over Haddon into Lathkill Dale. We found the River Lathkill dry, it had retreated underground, into its cave system, the disused mines beneath its course. The marginal vegetation like Hemp Agrimony had begun to wilt in the heat and dry. Only the deep, bathing pools, historic fishponds downriver held water, and here Swans and Mallards ignored swimmers and dogs. The site was busy but not the nightmare of antisocial behaviour reported on in recent weeks. Perhaps more people were staying away. Birds were few and far between, but a Buzzard gave us close views as it flew among the trees.

River Lathkill on one of its few excursions onto the surface. 

Curiously a number of big Nyphalid butterflies were gathered on the trunk of a beech tree, apparently
feeding on sap. Several trees held Commas and Red Admirals engaging in this behaviour.

Comma and two Red Admirals feeding on tree sap. 

Butterflies Seen: Ringlet, Gatekeeper, Red Admiral, Comma, Large White, Small Copper, Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood, Green Veined White. 








 

Open letter #1 An open letter to my local MP in support of a ban on Driven Grouse Shooting.

I am writing to express my support for the campaign to criminalise the driven shooting of Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scotius), and in support of the E-petition to ban it, started by Dr Mark Avery, which has received over 18,500 signatures at time of writing.  The campaign brings together grassroots conservation campaigners and seeks to address the tragic and unacceptable decline and potential extinction of the Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) as an English breeding bird.  It is my belief that a full ban on driven grouse shooting- where grouse are flushed from the heather by beaters onto the waiting guns-is the only way we can stop the criminal elements in this industry, who have proved themselves pathologically incapable of leaving magnificent birds of prey alone. The Hen Harrier, despite a range of efforts to save it, has now been reduced to a few breeding pairs in England and Wales.  After several decades, co-operation between Grouse shooting enterprises and government conservation agencies and NGOs has been a failure, and the English Hen Harrier population has continued its catastrophic downward trajectory.  If grouse shooting itself were criminalised, the profit in killing Hen Harriers would be wiped out overnight. It is already illegal to kill Hen Harriers, but gamekeepers and their landed masters continue to flout the law, as enforcement is minimal and the vast uplands hard to police, especially on wildlife crime budgets reduced by the Conservative party.  It is easy to discretely destroy a nest, or place bait or a trap, or shoot these trusting birds, as they are highly reluctant to abandon their nests and young.  It is far harder to conceal a party of guns and a band of hired beaters, and harder still to market a criminal shoot.  I am sure the League Against Cruel Sports or similar organisations would be able to support the law enforcement agencies, as they do in the case of Fox hunting, which has mercifully been criminalised, ensuring prosecutions where grouse are deliberately chased from cover onto the waiting guns.

The pro-shooting lobby claim that a ban on driven grouse shooting would damage rural economies, and grossly inflated figures tend to be trotted out by bodies such as the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Countryside Alliance, figure which typically represent the economic value of shooting as a whole, and not that of driven grouse shooting exclusively. It seems unlikely that driven shooting is of great benefit to the rural economy. It is seldom profitable and relies heavily on public subsidy, which surely undermines the Conservative values of enterprise and market freedom which are so often espoused by the clients, landowners and the current government of which you are a part.   Furthermore, shooting sees large swathes of access land closed to the public during the summer school holidays, at the height of the tourist season, and when the purple moorland is in full bloom and at its most beautiful. This cannot benefit areas like the Forest of Bowland and the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, where business relies so heavily on tourism. A restored Hen Harrier population, with watch points run by organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB, and by local entrepreneurs however, could make a substantial economic contribution, more than replacing any losses caused by the banning of driven grouse shooting, and would not represent a drain on public funds.

Grouse shooting has other damaging impacts on the uplands, as heather burns, designed to artificially create habitat and food sources for unnaturally high numbers of grouse, has an appreciable impact on hydrology and may increase the risk of flooding. Too high a frequency of burns can also damage the peaty upland soils and peat bogs, vital carbon sinks in the fight against climate change, and can damage floristic diversity in these scarce, and distinctly British habitats.

The Hen Harrier is an inspiring sight whether in summer in the uplands or in the lowlands during the winter, as it ghosts over the reed beds, and I hope one day to be able to witness it and not see the conversation with any other witnesses turn to persecution.  It would be a tragedy if it were lost so that frustrated city boys and foreign oligarchs with guns can blast barely flightworthy juvenile grouse out of the sky on the ‘Glorious’ Twelfth.  Only three Hen Harrier nests successfully fledged young in 2014, and in 2012 there were no successful nests.  Even the most optimistic estimates place the English breeding Hen Harrier population at around 12 pairs, while published estimates for the potential population, given the existing habitat, range between 40 and 200 pairs.  It is clear that action is needed now, and that the government should heed the public call for a ban on driven shooting during this parliament,  before the Hen Harrier is gone, and it is too late. 


The Epetition is available here:  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/65627