Uncovers glowing bugs, primitive amphibians and strange silhouettes on a twilight walk in the Peak District National Park

n a warm summer’s evening some years back, I woke my young son from his night’s sleep to take him on a twilight adventure. As we drove to Cressbrook Dale, the sun slowly dropping, blood-orange oozed across the sky like ink on blotting paper and I wondered why I didn’t walk more often at this magical time of day.

On the elbow of the road above Cressbrook village, we met up with our host from Natural England and descended into the woodland above the dale. We felt movement above our heads, then saw the dark blurry shapes of pipistrelle bats as

Othey flitted through trees, searching for insects. With a bat detector, we tuned into their high-pitched chatter.

CURIOUS LIGHTS

As we crossed a stile into the open dale, the light was fading. Through the gloaming we could see two lines of green fluorescent dots stretching out along the brookside path like an airport runway. Eyes filled with wonder, my toddler crouched down to get a closer look at the bioluminescent Lampyris noctiluca – our first glow-worms. Not really worms, the adult female beetles emit a glowing light to attract a mate. It was a rare and precious sighting.

If you continue towards the head of the valley, you’ll come to the limestone knoll of Peter’s Stone. It’s believed the last public hanging in Derbyshire took place here in 1815. Story goes, the convicted murderer’s body hung from the gibbet for 11 years before the locals complained about the noise of clattering bones in the wind.

Veering away from the grisly gibbet rock, we crossed a bridge and climbed the steep valley to a dewpond. I fetched our torches and we shone the lights into the murky water. Black beady eyes stared at us from lumpy, misshapen beings with serrated backs. These strange, primitive amphibians, looking like something between fish, frog and lizard, are great crested newts, a protected species. Lower down on the slope, we trained our binoculars on a badger’s sett. Eventually, dark silhouettes appeared on the opposite hillside – there then gone, but thrilling just the same.

We dropped down to the valley floor again, guided this time by tea-candles rather than glow-worms, aware we had experienced something extraordinary – an otherworldly land transformed by the goings-on of nocturnal wildlife.

Helen Moat is a writer, walker and cyclist, happiest when outside and on the move.