Pennington Flash

A rainy day kingfisher

A rain-filled afternoon over at Pennington Flash. The weather had a definite Autumn feel to it even though the sky above the Flash was filled with house martins, sand martins and swallows and five swifts hawked over the car park.

On the way in I took a detour round the south side of the Flash to check out the hedges for any passage migrants. There were a couple of mixed tit flocks, at least a dozen chiffchaffs and a couple of whitethroats, including one that looked as if it had had the rough end of a fight with a predator but managed to escape.

A rather battle-scarred whitethroat

1CY Lesser black-backed gull

Lesser black-backed gull

The "What the hell is that one?" phase of the gull-watching season is well in session. Amongst the large gulls there were plenty of lesser black-backed gulls of all ages and, eventually, I managed to spot a 1CY yellow-legged gull amongst the loafers at the far end of the spit.

A juvenile kingfisher made an appearance and sat on the usual dead branches in front of the Tom Edmondson Hide.

Kingfisher

Kingfisher

Dabchick

Blackcap

Mute swan

Willow tit

Always nice to see the car park oystercatcher