Day Out To Upper Derwent Valley : 28th July 2011
The Upper Derwent Valley is an area of the Peak District National Park and within it are various sites including Ladybower Reservoir, Derwent Reservoir and Howden Reservoir and their associated dams. From the visitor centre (on weekdays only) you can drive all the way up to “Kings Tree” where there is parking. From there we walked up past the “Slippery Stones” and onto the edge of Howden Moor on the path that runs above the River Derwent. This is a really good walk with the river in a valley on the one side and the moorland rising up on the other. We saw two Red Grouse walking along the path before they scuttled off into the heather. This is usually a reaaly good place for raptors but this time we only saw a solitary Buzzard. The whole area is full of Meadow Pipits, Stonechats and Whinchats.
“The Running Sky” is one of those bird books that belongs to the “emotional” or “aesthetic” tradition of natural history writings. In twelve chapters, one for each month of the year starting in June, Dee relates stories from a lifetime of birding. In his own words “it follows a single year of (birds) from one summer to the next; it begins with nests and eggs and chicks on the sea cliffs of Shetland, and it ends, a year later with nests, eggs and chicks in the holes of an oak wood on Exmoor.” A mixture of acute observation of both people and birds, this book relates a selection of experiences from over 40 years of birding.