Pennington Flash

Young song thrushes bathing

The Met Office told me the weather would be better than it was in Stretford so after a late morning wander round my local patch I got the buses to Pennington Flash. Just as I got off the bus at the entrance to the country park it started raining.

I've never seen Pennington Flash so quiet of people, not even on a lousy Winter's afternoon. Mind you, it felt like a lousy Winter's afternoon, the more so as it was only a couple of days ago I was feeling overdressed wearing a gilet. The lack of human traffic may have been the reason why the brook was heaving with mallard all quietly practising their nodding head courtship displays.

Tufted duck diving

All the usual suspects were out on the water. The tufted ducks were in a bit closer than usual, possibly because there wasn't the usual fuss and frenzy on the car park as nobody was there to throw food around. There's been a marked increase in the number of gulls with about a hundred black-headed gulls floating about and a couple of large rafts, each about forty strong, of lesser black-backs. There was a handful of herring gulls but I couldn't see any common gulls, which is strange this time of year.

There were fewer lapwings at the Horrocks Hide and most of they at the far end of the spit with a few cormorants.

Walking down the path towards the Tom Edmondson Hide I encountered the inevitable mixed tit flock working its way through the willows and by the path close to Pengy's pool there was a singing chiffchaff and the very brief appearance of a water rail.

A dozen gadwall were on the Tom Edmondson pool with a couple of moorhens. The pool on the other side of the path held a few shovelers, including a couple of young drakes starting to moult into adult colours and looking like patchwork dolls.

From the screen by Ramsdales Hide I could see a couple of dozen teal dotted about amongst the gadwalls and shovelers and a group of seven juvenile (I think) snipe on one of the little islands. The usual Cetti's warbler sang from the rough scrub at the corner of the main path.

Snipe

The wind had picked up and the rain was getting heavier so I put aside the plan to wander down the canal end to see if any redpolls were about in the trees. All the small birds along the path had gone into deep cover so the chances of seeing any redpolls that may have been there were extremely slim. I decided instead to walk back and see if anything was around the Bunting Hide. I pretty soon decided against this as the rain was bouncing off the path and this seemed to be a hint that it was time to call it quits.

The rain had eased down to a heavy drizzle by the time I got to the cattle pasture. I noticed some movements on the path ahead of me: a pair of robins and a couple of young song thrushes bathing in puddles. A goldcrest flew down and bathed in what could only be described as a damp patch on the path. The robins moved on, to be replaced by a chaffinch. The song thrushes lingered awhile then noticed me and ran into the hedge. Whereupon a treecreeper flew down for a very quick splash before being chased away by another chaffinch which was joined by a blackbird and one of the song thrushes. The treecreeper came back, flew down to the biggest puddle, decided it was too busy and flew off again. All told it was quarter of an hour before there was a lull in the proceedings and I could walk past without disturbing any bird's ablutions.

Song thrush bathing

Goldcrest bathing

Blackbird bathing

A wet, cold but rather productive couple of hours' birdwatching. Needless to say the sun came out and stayed out once I was on the bus home.