A lone European Golden Plover with the Ogden Clough in the background.
PENDLE HILL STILL HOLDS SEVERAL BREEDING PAIRS OF GOLDEN PLOVER, usually high up on the peat hinterland. Their mournful song flights are far carrying and add to a wonderful soundscape of ascending skylarks, parachuting Meadow Pipits and clucking Red Grouse. Twite and Dunlin also used to breed up here but were long gone before I arrived in East Lancs in 2005. I’ve never managed to get too close to goldies, they’re usually quite wary on Pendle but I’m quite happy to settle for a few in-landscape images that I took with Phil Larkin earlier this spring.
A pair of golden plovers on Pendle Hill
Golden skylark at dawn
Cold pre-dawn light skylark, still warming up after the overnight frost
Dawn breaks over the Pennines to the east of Pendle