Country diary: Is it a thrush, or is it a mimicking starling? | Ed Douglas

Edale, Derbyshire: A brief but remarkable scene left us laughing in surpriseLady Booth Brook offers a canny and less frequented route up to the fabled plateau of Kinder Scout. A "booth" was a cattle farm, also known as a vaccary, a common feature in the medieval Pennines. The lady I don't know. The modern farm is Nether Booth, where a track leads north beside the stream, past some gnarled and venerable alders, to Edale's youth hostel and then a steep gorge, which the path outflanks.Above this, the hillside relaxes into a delightful bowl and is filled, at this time of year, with curlew song: the reason we had come. You gain height quickly this way, but we kept stopping to absorb the quickening ripple of song from a distant curlew that periodically took off to circle the cwm, floating briefly as it settled back on the ground. Continue reading...