Pennington Flash

Long-tailed tit

Had a wander round Pennington Flash to see if yesterday's smew was still around (it wasn't, smew tend not to linger on the flashes for some reason). There were a couple of dozen goldeneye on the sailing club side of the flash, which is a more than fair consolation. There were also a couple of large rafts of tufted duck. Amongst the hundreds of gulls the most numerous were black-headed gulls but the most obvious were herring and lesser black-backed gulls. Scattered in the rafts of loafing gulls were a dozen or more common gulls and three great black-backs.

For a change, and in the hopes the smew might still be around, I took the South and West paths by the flash today. There aren't any hides along this stretch but the woodland's a bit thicker and wilder before you get to the sailing club. My reward was three mixed tit flocks, including goldcrests and chiffchaffs, and an uncharacteristically quiet jay working its way through the hawthorn bushes.

It's the first time I've left Pennington Flash by Green Lane. I turned onto Byrom Lane and headed for the bus stop on Slag Lane [sic]. The 588 and 589 buses go down here between Leigh and Lowton and it's a bit confusing the first time as the buses go down into Lowton, do a clockwise or anticlockwise circuit of the housing estate then come back the way they went. While I was waiting a couple of hundred black-headed gulls flew over to roost on the flash, about fifty jackdaws headed for the woods and three skeins of pink-footed geese, about sixty birds in total, headed East towards who knows what destination.