Peak District Wanderings

Now that Easter is done I can follow up the Coombes Valley post with a few bits and bobs from the subsequent couple of days that we spent in the Peak District with Buxton as our base.

Our first port of call was to have a walk around the Upper Derwent Valley, for me this was more an historical exercise rather than a birding one as as you may see from the odd post I am also a bit of an aviation nut and wanted to see where 617 Squadron did their practices before raiding the dams in Germany. Of course there may have been a few birds about too! First the historical bit,
The 617b Squadron Memorial

 A bit of info,

 The Derwent Reservoir Dam

We did get our first Chiffchaff of the year while walking around,

as well as more Willow Warblers, an obliging Wren,

a couple of Buzzards over the trees and loads of Chaffinch, but with all the people there wasn't much else about.

We then went for a drive and explored the countryside,

We ended up back near Buxton towards the end of the day, looking for somewhere to park up admire the view and perhaps see some birds, we ended up on one of the roads into the Goyt Valley, where we initially saw a couple of Curlew, before parking and watching our first 'English' Red Grouse.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and went back to the Goyt Valley for a walk around the reservoirs, we didn't see much on the first leg of the walk, just some Mallard, Canada Geese, a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls and distant female Goosander. Things perked up on the second leg walking through the woods, Treecreeper and Goldcrest being the stars,

Followed by a Coal Tit

Before heading home we ended up driving over the Moors near Goyt, where we had an excellent showing by a male and female Red Grouse, though the female was very camera shy.

We then took the scenic route home, seeing our first Wheatear of the year in one of the gorges. So a really lovely couple of days with kind but at the end cold weather. Lets hope our next trip is as kind as we are hoping to get to Cape Wrath up the north west tip of Scotland and also visit Handa Island, for both of which we need calm days!