Skirr Cottage Diary.

Today, with encouragement from my wife, I managed a walk around Rudyard Lake, near Leek. Expecting it to rain all day it proved a bonus to wake to perhaps not sunshine but at least a bright sky. While having a mug of tea in the cafe’ at the head of the lake a buzzard came into view drifting over the nearby pine trees. Following the miniature railway track the woodland verge appeared vey quiet although nuthatch and great tit were heard. On the lake two great-crested grebes were busy diving, still sporting winter plumage. Then a small group of goosander came into view, mainly male but two females in the party beautiful in sharp winter sunlight. They were to be spotted again later. The goosander is a large diving duck, a member of the sawbill family. The male has a gorgeous metallic green head and neck while the female or red head looks very similar to a red-breasted merganser. At the bottom end and shallower part of the lake there is a little stone bridge over the sluggish river that flows out of the lake: a good sitting place to dig out the flask and watch the small birds come down to use the feeders someone kindly hangs from the alders beside the bridge. It is great to watch the tit tribe including long-tailed tits flit among the thin branches then take their food into the willows among the nearby sunlit, crumpled golden reeds. Nuthatch, reed buntings and other woodland birds can be seen here, but best of all are the willow tits with their sooty black caps and untidy black bibs, they are always a delight to see. The walk from the bridge back to the village is lovely, alders creeping into lake, mature beech trees, tangled ivy growing up old stumps and plenty of holly trees. In spring these woods become alive with the call of the chiff-chaff and later with willow warblers. Of course we didn’t completely escape the rain – in this case rain then hailstones. Luckily it quickly passed over and we completed the walk relatively dry.