The sombre northern flank of Bleaklow has three Black Cloughs, differentiated with admirable directness as Near, Middle and Far. Clough is a northern word, likely Old Norse in origin, for a cleft in a hill.
The overall effect is familiar enough – bleak, desolate, country. But look more closely and the contrasts are spectacular.
Far Black Clough has a vehicle track bulldozed up it so grouse shooters can get to the moors more easily. The stream’s steep banks, not long burned to boost grouse numbers, are still quite black and eerily quiet.
But the bottom of Near Black Clough is much more promising – thick with birch and rich with the song of willow warblers and blackcaps, a vibrant reminder of how the other valleys that groove and score these moors might be given half a chance.
On this day, when I reached wilder country, at the head of the clough, where the trees thinned out, I heard the call of a golden plover drift across the heather. Insistent, piping, with that fretful, anxious shading that suits the bird’s skittish nature as well as its desolate home.
Moving among the peat hags, one goldie after another appeared ahead of me, poised in silhouette on the apex of the next black mound, full-bodied, almost stout, before it spun away, transformed on narrow wings, so sleek in its angled flight, quick and nimble, so purposeful compared to that other upland plover, the lapwing, with its joyous loops and sudden twists.
Most of my sightings of golden plover, or Pluvialis aprica, have been large flocks in winter, so encountering these birds in their breeding plumage was a glorious opportunity.
I dug through my rucksack for binoculars, but came up empty handed. Damn. When I walked on, the plovers’ plaintive call seemed just a little sadder, as though they were commiserating.
Then I spotted a couple of walkers at Bleaklow Head, and wandered over, more in hope than expectation, but, sure enough, they were better prepared than me.
They kindly passed over their “bins”, and the nearest plover popped into view, the glittering, butter-gold speckles of its back bordered by the white question-mark that curls above its eye, a shy jewel of the moors revealed.
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