1.45 p.m.: Getting myself in holiday mood, I sketch the view from the Courtyard Brasserie, near Settle, looking west over the grassy embankment of the Skipton/Settle railway. Swallows are nesting under the end of the roof on the gable end of the barn, perching and preening on the lines of bunting hanging over the courtyard.
2.30 p.m.: A little owl perches on a roadside fence post, in Horton in Ribblesdale.
5.30 p.m., Nethergill Farm, Langstrothdale: With their characteristic single-mindedness, siskins are feeding on niger seed at the beck-side hide. The males are in such glowingly green plumage that they look as if they’ve been freshly painted.
A curlew probes the turf amongst the rushes by a bend in the beck.
Our favourite book delivery: after dropping off a consignment of my walks booklets at the distributors in Orgreave we make our way across Sheffield and, via Ringinglow, up onto the moors. At the Riverside Café near Hathersage there are plenty of siskins on the bird feeders this morning.
There must have been more rain here in the Peak District than we’ve had at home because we’ve never known the paths from Hope across the slopes of Lose Hill to be so slickly muddy but at least we are able to thoroughly clean our walking boots in the puddles on the farm track into Castleton.
Our first swallow flies out of a stable at Spring House Farm and out across the pasture.
Jackdaws sit in the top of the weeping ash in the back garden at Rose Cottage Tearooms, our regular lunch stop, but the garden isn’t quite as bird friendly as the Riverside: a tabby cat patrols the patio.
Dipper
2.15 p.m.: A dipper in the river, Peaksole Water, at Hope, seems to take some effort to push below the surface. It keeps returning to a mid-stream rock, then heading out in different directions beneath the surface.
ABOUT THREE-QUARTERS of the lake at Newmillerdam is ice-covered this morning but there’s room for Tufted Ducks to dive, apparently for freshwater mussels, in a spot ten or twenty yards from the shore between the boathouse and the war memorial, where I’ve seen them diving before.
Can there really be so many mussels in the lake?
Nearer the shore we can see these shells, at least some of which look empty. I’ve boosted the contrast in the photograph because of the glare on the water surface.
Amongst the Mallards there’s a single Pink-footed Goose, which hisses as it pecks at some scraps that a visitor has left on the path.
Barbara picks up this feather which I assume is from the goose but looking at my photograph of the bird, a breast feather like this should be greyer and banded horizontally, rather than streaked vertically, so I think this is more likely to be a feather from a female Mallard.
At first glance, as it dives under, the Dabchick or Little Grebe looks like a diminutive duck but, as it keeps bobbing up briefly, we can see the more pointy bill of the grebe. By the boathouse we see a Goosander, a saw-billed duck (the saw-like edges of the bill help it grip small fish).
I’ve drawn squirrel-nibbled cones on several occasions but, as it was too cold to be comfortable to stop and sketch, I picked these up to draw in the studio later.
As we walk back through the conifer plantations, there’s a twittering all around us in the tops of the trees. Even with binoculars I can see no more than a dark silhouette, possibly with streaky plumage, but the shape and the shallow notch in the tail make me think it’s a finch and the size, about the size of a Blue Tit, narrows it down to Siskin. Siskins visit in large flock during winter and often visit conifer plantations.
1.45 p.m.: Getting myself in holiday mood, I sketch the view from the Courtyard Brasserie, near Settle, looking west over the grassy embankment of the Skipton/Settle railway. Swallows are nesting under the end of the roof on the gable end of the barn, perching and preening on the lines of bunting hanging over the courtyard.
5.30 p.m., Nethergill Farm, Langstrothdale: With their characteristic single-mindedness, siskins are feeding on niger seed at the beck-side hide. The males are in such glowingly green plumage that they look as if they’ve been freshly painted.
