Roman Lakes Leisure Park

Happy New Year everyone.

As is traditional for me and Lyn, we spent New Year with friends away from home. This year it was Glossop again, and for the first day of 2015 I was taken to a nearby locality which I was assured contained a lake and lots of birds.

This turned out to be Roman Lakes Leisure Park near Marple in either Derbyshire or Cheshire (I'm not sure which). Our friends headed off on their New Year ramble while I was left to explore my new environs. The habitat consisted of the steep sided wooded valley of the fast flowing river Goyt. Prime habitat, I decided, for Dippers.

Near the top of the walk I came across the lakes, which were small but jam-packed with at least 90 Coots. Also of interest from a "no chance of seeing one at Morton Bagot" point of view was a Great Crested Grebe, and arguably better, a pair of Goosander.

The drake Goosander

In fact Goosander is the one diving duck other than Tufted Duck which I have seen at Morton Bagot, but it may be a long wait for the next one.

At the pools I bumped into another birder. We traded birds as he told me he had seen the Goosanders and also a Dipper "up by the Roman bridge". All I could offer him was Siskin and Lesser Redpoll which I had seen dangling from alders with a small party of Goldfinches.

As the drizzle intensified I headed past the lakes in the direction he had indicated, and soon heard a call which I was pretty sure had been made by a Dipper. I scanned the river in vain from the bank, and then from the roman bridge, then the bank again. At this point our friends appeared and after a brief chat headed onwards telling me to meet them by the cars by 2.00pm at the latest.

I kept on looking. Another call, and another. Finally I spotted it and got pretty good views of a species I very much doubt I'll see again this year.

Dipper

It actually started singing after a while. I have heard them on Dowles Brook in Worcs before, but it was good to be reminded of what they sound like. The song sounds a bit like a Reed Warbler's but one in which the singer forgets his lines and ends with a higher pitched anxiety attack. I'll leave it to your imagination.

There isn't much else to report. I saw a Grey Wagtail, photographed a Grey Heron, and saw a cloud of about 100 Jackdaws above Marple before our intrepid group, who I had managed to catch up,  headed for the pub.

Normal service will be resumed on Jan 3rd.