Campsite wildlife at Usha Gap.

The campsite at Usha Gap offers two options; camping by the alder trees along Muker Beck, or in one of two spacious fields behind the farm at the foot of Kisdon Hill. Both choices are good for viewing wildlife but I prefer the beck-side for close up-encounters with birds. If it has been raining and the midges are really bad, then the beck-side is a bad choice and there is also a risk of flooding.

The beck-side

Birdlife along the beck in summer is especially good. This year we had dozens of young chiffchaffs, willow warblers passing through. Chiffchaffs seem to be doing better in numbers, probably due to their shorter migration to Iberia rather than Africa. Spotted flycatchers were joined by treecreepers, wrens and baby blue-tits. Finches breed close by and chaffinches join the farmyard sparrows and starlings around the picnic tables while greenfinches, goldfinches, redpolls and siskins are best picked up by their calls.

Little owl near Muker. 

Among the beck-stones, wagtails are common with pied and grey wagtails mixing together in the hunt for insects, often perching on the fence to feed their chicks. The top birds to spot are dippers, which are really giant wrens. Look for one with its dazzling white breast bobbing up and down on a rock in the middle of the beck. Their favourite stones always display a white blob of "Dulux".  If you watch closely you can see them snorkel along the surface before pushing themselves under and running along the bottom using their wings as hydroplanes to push them down in search for insects and small fish. Kingfishers visit the campsite too, but they are less approachable than the dippers.

Young wagtail.

Swallows, sand martins, house martins and swifts dash low over the water and circle back over the tents to try again, always hunting against the wind.

Just downstream of the campsite there is a more densely wooded area hides nesting birds such as red-starts that visit the campsite after the young have flown. Common sandpipers work their way upstream and hunt in the beck, but if you want to see a woodcock it is best to watch them circling over the campsite or the Farmers Arms at sunset. Sometimes, just after hay-time, you can find them resting in the open during the day, but woodcock are particularly nocturnal.

A moulting buzzard flaps over the campsite.

The most obliging campsite birds are the mallards that wander between the tents but there are other waterfowl around. One summer, a whole family of goosanders rafted down the beck past my tent. More commonly I enjoy watching the moorhens feed their little black fluff-ball chicks. They are great parents. Baby moorhens are lucky because any passing sub-adult will feed them too.

Male pied wagtail and chick.

In the fields across the road, the snores of your neighbours may be drowned out with the calls of moorbirds. Black and white oystercatchers shout "Peter! Peter!" or just "Pete" while curlews have a broad range of yodels and trills. Gulls, particularly black-headed gulls come down from the tarns on the moors.

Cock chaffinch.

Owls are present too. There are little owls and barn owls nesting in the cow-houses on the way to Muker and tawny owls screech and hoot near the woods. Nigh-times cam be quite noisy in the dales, even when the sheep are quiet. 

Baby song-thrush.

Looking up the slope of Kisdon Hill is almost always fruitful for birding. Jackdaws out-number the other crows, but carrion crows are always present along with ravens that they mob mercilessly. If you are not familiar with ravens, they are much bigger than crows, long winged and with a head that sticks out in front as much as the wedged tail sticks out behind. They look like a cross in the sky or like an anchor when they fold back their wings.

Dipper. This is a young one.

As for birds of prey, the possibilities vary from year to year. Buzzards and kestrels are usually around, but I have seen red kites, peregrines and merlins quite often. Along with short-eared owls, they can be pushed down from the tops by the grouse shoot which starts on August 12th.

There are always other birds passing through, so ring-ouzels and wheatears may show up in spring and autumn, and there are many common birds I have not mentioned, but what about mammals?

Common hawker dragonfly.

Rabbits can be seen everywhere, all day, but keep an eye out for stoats hunting them along the beck. Early in the morning is the best time to spot roe deer on the hill or hedgehogs in the meadows, but both prefer the darker hours. Foxes are a rare sight and badgers must be around too but are rarely seen. The most common mammals, apart from sheep and cows are bats. A walk back from the pub on a summer's evening always produces a few bats.

Stone loach.

As children, my brother and I loved to look under the beck-stones for whetever was there, stoneflies, caddis-flies, mayflies, tadpoles..... anything and everything was fascination...and it still is. If you are quick you can catch bullheads (called miller's thumb over here or sculpin in the USA) and, if you are even quicker, you might catch a stone loach.

Bullhead.

I have run out of space here to add more photos. All of the above are from July 2019.