Goyt Valley

The Goyt Valley near Buxton is somewhere I enjoy going for a walk but I don't often see much, there are plenty of reports from the area, but the best to date for me and Lesley is a single Tree Pipit and a Common Sandpiper, not quite the stuff of legends.

The weather was not great quite over cast but we weren't in the house and that was the whole idea of just getting out and enjoying the countryside.

We did blunder into a female Redstart that was in a patch of trees by the road by the lake side, which soon took flight once it new it was being watched.

Further along we stopped to enjoy the scenery and just relax and was lucky enough to see a few Tree Pipit and Nuthatch and a rather distant male Redstart, plus we saw quite a few dung beetles we moved off the path so they wouldn't meet their end under the boot of a passing walker.

Doxey Marsh

After missing out on seeing the Corn Crake up at Hale (although I did hear it) Sunday involved staying more local and someone where more Gemma friendly than a road side verge in rural Cheshire, so we headed for Doxey Marsh to feed the ducks and stretch our legs.

Plenty of Warblers were seen on our Walk to and around the reserve White Throat, Sedge, Reed and Willow all being noted with a few Reed Warbler feeding next to the pool we were feeding the ducks in allowing time for me to grab a few shots in between issuing handfuls of seed out.

Further along the track we came across a patch of mud House Martins were collecting building material from, so we sat quietly and were lucky enough to have them coming down no more than a couple of meters ahead of us, Gem thought it was great that they were playing in the mud.