he name Goyt valley may be pre-Celtic, but there isn’t much sense of the ancient here by day. The sounds of traffic are constant and it has been much visited in lockdown. Some of its history is also salted with tears. Two reservoirs – Fernilee in 1938, Errwood in 1967 – may have quenched Stockport’s thirst, but they drowned whole villages and triggered the closure of Errwood Hall, the home of the Grimshawes, who built it in 1830 on proceeds from Lancashire factories.
The hall ruins are steeped in shadows from glorious old sessile oaks and some of the area’s largest sweet chestnuts. Infused further with willow warbler song, the walk is beautiful but haunted, although I confess that some of Goyt’s ghosts are mine. The Grimshawes filled the valley with rhododendrons and azaleas, whose invasive impact has been curtailed lately, but 50 years ago I’d visit here with my grandma, who loved the dusky-purple spectacular of their spring blossoms (she could also recall supplies delivered to the hall by coach and horse).
As the last sunlight slanted down through the trees, I noticed how it illuminated a scintillating horde of mixed insects and sallow seeds billowing out in the valley. When all that detail was gone and the sky was just an ice-blue breast pinned by a cold new moon, the woodcocks came to “rode” across the treetops.
These barrel-chested waders of the woods are among the most difficult birds in Britain to see well. Their plumage is the colour of earth or leaf litter, with barred black and silvery white detail. The default daytime habit is silence. Woodcocks sit and await dusk, then arise, circling the treetops in this weird, halting, bow-winged repeat display flight, when they emit a combination of frequent gnarly toad-like croaks and an intense high psssip sound .
Neither noise betrays a woodcock’s location, and there is much whirling about and cupping of ears to fix its place. Just once I caught this exquisite clod of a bird low over my head and glimpsed the softest warm bracken of its breast. Two roding males, when their display circuits crossed, fenced one another with vigorous psssip notes, and that was my lot for four hours of waiting.
