Even midweek, warm spring weather brings crowds to the top of Padley Gorge. Sheffielders bask on patches of grass beside the peaty trickle of Burbage Brook. The ice‑cream van on the road above does brisk trade. Kids shriek as they splash in the water. The lack of rain has brought out fire notices: “No barbecues”; and, in a sign of the times, “No shisha”. There’s a faint smell of weed, but that’s about it on the combustibles.
The world below is wholly different. Here the stream bed drops away and its banks become thronged with oaks. These are not the straight-stemmed specimens of manicured parkland. They are demotic, stunted, twisted, writhing wonders that jostle and clash, a labyrinth of shade and mystery. Paths run either side of the stream, and from my perch I can look down on small groups of people moving through this otherworld, occasionally looking up from the rocky path to gaze at the canopy.
Where I’m sitting is an old spoil tip of gritstone from a long-abandoned quarry, now smothered in parched moss and shaded by trees. Its position has brought me level with the branches of a nearby oak, its new leaves lime-green in the soft light. I notice one branch is occupied. Standing tall is a spotted flycatcher, lately arrived from Africa. All around, the air hums with insects of contrasting size and habits, hoverflies sliding on invisible rails, a small white butterfly flopping around the oak’s trunk. Yet the flycatcher remains entirely still.
For an allegedly drab bird, this small passerine has lots of rizz. Its colours are muted, creams and browns, but their combination is subtly elegant. It holds itself upright and poised. And this stillness compels me. I watch for movement and there is none, just a watchfulness as the world pours into the black globe of its eye. Then, an explosive blur of wings, a body arcing in space, and it’s back on the branch, a thorax and legs clamped in its beak, eye still open to the infinite.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
