Country diary: The sense of emptiness in these driven-grouse moors stirs a deep melancholy | Mark Cocker

Combs Moss, Derbyshire: For 50 years, I have been coming here to see breeding waders, now gone or much diminished. We must find a way to arrest this declineIt's one of my midsummer rituals, if the forecast is right, to climb on to the moorland tops and await sunset. I build in several secondary goals: check if there are lapwings still on eggs in the sheep pasture below the summit (just two); see if there are curlew pairs breeding in the heather (only three).These exercises add to a personal dataset that is 50 years old. While I can confirm that, in all that time, snipes, curlews, lapwings and golden plovers have bred annually, both redshanks and dunlins have long gone and the other quartet is much diminished. As a result, Combs Moss is steeped in melancholy for me. Continue reading...