Upper Goyt Valley & Dane Bower Quarry : 20th May 2016

Upper Goyt Valley & Dane Bower Quarry : 20th May 2016

We are due to go to Scotland at the same time as the birding group has scheduled Upper Goyt Valley so we will miss it. We decided to go there, a little earlier than usual) in the hope of seeing the usual species we like to think we will see there; Spotted and Pied Flycatcher and Redstart and Tree Pipit. We were partly succesful but also had an added fantastic sighting that I can’t really believe I managed to make.

As soon as we got out of the car in the car park we heard a Cuckoo calling particularly loudly but we couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. We continued walking up the road listening to the numerous Willow Warblers that are always heard here.

As soon as we got out of the car in the car park we heard a Cuckoo calling particularly loudly but we couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. We continued walking up the road listening to the numerous Willow Warblers that are always heard here and looking out for Pied Flycatchers nesting in the boxes provided for them.

With no joy looking for the Flycatchers, I turned my attention to the Cuckoo that was persistently calling. I wasn’t sure where to look but I imagined that it was quite a long way away so I got the scope out and started to scan the trees on the very far side of the valley starting with the highest one. I can’t remember if it was the first tree or the second but impossibly quickly I located the bird sitting at the very top of a tree showing only its head and breast. There didn’t seem to be much doubt that this was the bird that was calling. A couple of people passed us and asked us what we were looking at. When I said we were looking at the Cuckoo they could hear they were amazed. Frankly, I was too. They both managed to see it in the scope and just as the man look his eye away from the scope the bird rose up and flew straight at us way over our heads making identification absolutely certain. An amazing start to the morning.

Well, I suppose anything else was going to be mildly disappointing and, apart from a Treecreeper and lots of Willow Warblers we were not seeing a great deal. We kept stopping to talk to other birders and they all seem to have seen Spotted Flycatchers and Redstarts earlier in the day but we just couldn’t locate any.

We know this site can be like that, though, so we were not deterred and continued on. As we went continued on up the road we a Grey and a Pied Wagtail both plonked themselves down on the road in front of us. We went down to the river and got better views of a pair of Grey Wagtails but not much else.

We climbed back up the steps to the main road and walked down to the start of the path down to the river. It was only when we walked up the other path with the dry stone wall that we started to get lucky. I heard the call of a bird and slowly edged towards the tree I thought it was coming from and got my first Redstart of the year. As I was watching, another Redstart landed in the same tree.

We got to the path that drops down to the car park and again it was a call that attracted me and it was not long before I located a Spotted Flycatcher. I did walk back along the main road again to see if I could have one last shot at Pied Flycatcher but to no avail. In fact, no one I met had seen one so I assumed that they had not arrived yet. I was to be proved wrong when we drove along the road to get to the Cat and Fiddle and came across a group of birders (one of the Sale groups) who were in a sort of picnic area on the left side of the road about half a mile from the car park. They were all looking down at the river so we thought they must have something; a Dipper hopefully and that was what it turned out to be so that was a second “year tick” for the day. Whilst we were talking to them , one of the group showed me a photo on his camera of a Pied Flycatcher that he had seen a couple of hundred metres back. Unfortunately the road is one-way so we couldn’t drive back and with the weather threatening to turn we thought we had better go for lunch and then on to Dane Bower Quarry to look for Ring Ouzel.

We were disappointed to find that the Cat and Fiddle was closed until further notice. A bit cheesed off at this, we decided to just get on to the Quarry. Unfortunately, when we got there, a stone mason was breaking stones to mend the dry stone wall either side of a gate he had replaced. This is exactly where we had seen Ring Ouzel here before so we figured that the noise had disturbed them and they had gone elsewhere for a few hours.

We did know that they were around because we spoke earlier in the day to a chap who had seen them at the quarry in the morning. As it was there were only a Meadow Pipit, two Red Grouse and several Wheatear there for us to see. Still, I suppose, the Red Grouse were a “year tick” so that made three for the day.

The weather was turning so we decided to call it a day since it didn’t look hopeful for the Ring Ouzels. So a bit of a mixed day with great sightings and a few disappointments. Still, actually locating a Cuckoo made up for it all and, as a parting shot, we got a nice Raven as we drove back down from the moors.

Year Ticks : Red Grouse, Common Redstart, Dipper

Bird Sightings : Upper Goyt Valley

Bird Sightings : Dane Bower Quarry