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A bird releases the butterfly effect

Guest blog by Deborah Pitman

Autumn tones reveal themselves along the thinly wooded edge of Waterswallows Quarry, the wildlife haven just outside Buxton. The cliffs stand starkly majestic in the warm, mizzling air. We scan the water for a rarity.

A rare Arctic visitor...

The High Peak, it turns out, lies on the migratory path of a charming little bird: the Grey Phalarope. Just one paused its journey here at the beginning of October. The Grey Phalarope moves from nesting grounds in the high Arctic to winter warmth in the tropics. With only around 160 seen in the UK each year — most of them coastal — this inland stopover caused a stir.

Jason Adshead and I decided to go and take a look. At just 20cm long, it’s smaller than a blackbird. A beaming man passes us as we approach: “It’s tucked in on the far side.” Sure enough, we soon spot it scooting across the water, absorbed in its own world, almost exactly where he’d said.

Grey phalarope, picture from Ron Knight
CC BY 2.0 licence. via Wikimedia Commons

A birder from Matlock ambles over and smiles: “It’s my first visit since the seventies. I was a student on a field trip. There’s a volcano down there.” I’m used to shrugging off tall tales from strangers on walks — but he was right. Some 300 million years ago, molten basalt swept over the limestone; in the last century, we carved it back out of the earth.

Back to the Grey Phalarope. The Collins Guide to British Birds describes it as “often oblivious to human observers,” spinning on the water and delicately picking invertebrates from the surface. I can only hope it also remained oblivious to the wave of rubbish breaking around the quarry’s edge.

... prompts a marathon litter pick

Autumn’s levels of litter at Waterswallows are nothing compared with summer’s, but still too much. Nature is resurging after years of heavy industry. Wildlife has been coaxed back to the margins through tree planting and meadow creation — projects delivered by volunteers from the neighbouring Nestlé water-bottling plant. Fungi now cluster beneath the young woodland, mushrooms cheek by jowl with the litter that breaks down and disrupts the habitat.

The beautiful phalarope made the butterfly effect real — a single wingbeat inspiring something far larger. Chapel-en-le-Frith’s Biodiversity Group decided to act. This autumn’s clean-up follows the huge efforts of those who cleared the party debris left from summer nights. Around sixty volunteer hours, spread across four weekends, have seen bag after bag hauled from every corner of the site: car tyres, gas bottles, nitrous oxide canisters, plastic, glass, a whirligig washing line — everything, including a kitchen sink.

Deb, Jason and Nic at Waterswallows

Nic Callaghan paddle-boarded the perimeter, towing sack after sack of rubbish back to shore. The satisfaction is written across her beaming face. Making a mark on a natural space does that to you — it becomes a shared experience, a meditative act of rebellion. A quiet declaration that we don’t have to be passive in the face of rubbish when it stands in Mother Nature’s way.

Our paddle board champion litter picker Nic!

"Being part of the solution is a wonderful feeling"

Litter is a complex issue to solve, but being part of the solution is a wonderful feeling. Chapel-en-le-Frith Biodiversity Group carry out regular litter-picks around the parish — and occasionally further afield, when a passing rarity points us toward a problem.

Chapel Biodiversity Group volunteers with some of the litter from Waterswallows

Helping hibernators

Now that we are well and truly into Autumn and Winter will be here before we know it, we've added a page on hibernation which is full of tips for things you can do (and not do!) to support hibernating insects, reptiles and mammals. 

You can find the page on our menu above or just click here.

August 2025 Newsletter

We've just sent out our August 2025 newsletter - and it's a bumper edition! 

Featuring news about swifts, how we helped celebrate Chapel's 800th birthday, and upcoming activities you can get involved in - from water surveying to reporting Himalayan Balsam. 

If you want to receive our news direct to your inbox, sign up for the mailing list in the box on the right hand side of this page. 

Or you can read the web version here.

UPDATE! Bug Hunt and other nature activities POSTPONED

UPDATE! The rain is not letting up this morning ☔ No one wants to paint rocks in the rain ⛈️so we are postponing the nature activities until a little later in the summer. We'll keep all the little treats safe ready for a rescheduled activity day. Keep an eye on this website and on our Facebook group for the new date.

🐛🐜🪲🐞🦗🪳🪰🐛🐜🪲🐞🦗🪳🪰🐛🐜🪲🐞🦗🪳🪰🐛🐜

As part of the 800th Birthday celebrations for Chapel-en-le-Frith, we've organised nature activities for children in the Memorial Park this Sunday 2-4pm. 

There will be.... 

- A bug hunt 🐛🐜🪲🐞🦗🪳🪰

- Rock painting 🎨🖌️

- Tree drawing 🌲🌳🌴

And we have some little treats to take away at the end 😊

Pop by any time, no need to register. 

Under 18s with a parent or guardian please.

See Nature based fun for the children | Facebook

Supporting and saving our amazing swift populations in Chapel-en-le-Frith and beyond!

A guest post from Deb Pitman, who is leading our Chapel Swift Walk on Saturday 28 June 2025. 

As the summer solstice passes by the swifts have had their longest feeding day! They consume the largest range of insects of any birds that call the UK home. They form them in to a delicious bolus with their saliva and then divvy it up amongst their chicks in the nest. 

Back in the depths of winter, with no swifts to admire, I applied to two funding pots with the intention of helping swifts. Derbyshire Wildlife Trust were offering grants of up to £3000 and High Peak Borough Council had £1000 on offer to support nature. With the help of my local group, Nature New Mills, I was successful. The Chapel en le Frith Biodiversity group had requested an allocation to buy materials to make boxes and I was able to deliver it. Jason Adshead contributed his council allowance to grow the fund. It's been so great working together for the good of the High Peak swifts. As time passed, and the swifts' return was imminent, the decision was taken to buy ready-made boxes from the legend John Stimpson, a true champion of swifts. He's devoted his retirement to making swift boxes. He ships them, more or less 'at cost', all over the country passing the 10,000 mark at the last count. His boxes are now available on homes in the town, for when the youngsters need a place of their own, thanks to great work by volunteer installers. 

The mantra of all swift surveying is to know where the nests are so they can be protected. This has proved instructional this summer as nesting swifts have been located at the Chapel Milton viaducts, just as a programme of renewal begins. Network Rail are communicating with us about scheduling the brick work patching towards the tail end of the project. It's against the law to disrupt a nesting bird, it's eggs, or nest. They're covered by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Back to the bolus of saliva and insects! Join us on a swift walk around the town Saturday 28^th June 8pm to find out just how many they do eat and lots more interesting information besides. Finger's crossed we'll see swifts feeding, playing and entering nest sites. Register for a free ticket below. 

Swift Walk - Chapel En Le Frith Tickets, Sat 28 Jun 2025 at 20:00 | Eventbrite

This is 'year one' of Chapel en le Frith's Biodiversity Group's initiative to help swifts. If you want to join in, all are welcome. There's grants to be applied for, ladders to climb and stories to tell, all by way of helping these marvellous birds.

Announcing our children's picture competition!

Prizes!

As part of our Parish's 800th anniversary celebrations, we are launching a nature drawing competition for creative kids, kindly sponsored by Bluebird's Nest, 27b Market Street.

Can you help us create a beautiful window display at Bluebirds? 

We are looking for budding artists to create a picture of a colourful butterfly, Bugs that you may have spotted whilst out walking, Busy bees and insects you have spotted.

You can make your creations as colourful as you like.

Please do drop your creations off at Bluebirds nest before the 18th of June with the child’s name and contact on reverse of artwork.

The children’s creations will all be given a number and 3 will be picked at random and will win 1 of 3 prizes from Bluebirds.

Winners will be announced on Monday the 23rd of June.

We can’t wait to see your drawings!