Hindley and Leigh and mud

Lapwings, Pennington Flash

I had all sorts of plans for today but then decided I really couldn't be doing with all that bother, which is becoming a common occurrence lately. In the end I decided to go for a wander round Hindley Green, somewhere I've gone through quite often on the bus but never stopped for a nosey. The plan was to get the 132 to Dangerous Corner (yes, really, and it's a dead straight length of road)  and join the lane that runs between Howe Bridge and Platt Bridge which runs parallel to a small wooded brook with crossing points onto the more open country to the South.

Walking down to Leigh Road

Finding the path was a lot easier than I expected and it was only quite a bit muddy. A small tit flock — great, blue and coal, foraged in the trees and a female chaffinch fed in the brambles by the path. At the first little bridge over the brook I crossed over, climbed some steps and found myself on a path in the open scrub. A flock of a dozen lapwings flew overhead and a couple of jays screeched from the trees a bit further along.  It looked like it would be a good idea to follow this path right up to the point where I looked at the state of it as it went over a rise and into a hollow. You never want to see moorhens swimming on a path. So I went back to the other path and carried on down to Leigh Road.

Crossing Leigh Road I tried to join the path again. The slope, the mud, and the pool at the bottom of the slop defeated me. I tried a couple of steps down, using a sapling as support, it soon become apparent that the only question would be whether I'd land in the puddle before the ground I was walking on. So I knocked that plan on the head.

The bus stop was just across the road so I got the bus to Leigh, got off on Firs Lane and walked down the canal to Pennington Flash.

Leeds & Liverpool Canal, Leigh

There was a steady stream of gulls and jackdaws overhead on their way to roost on Pennington Flash. Most of the gulls were black-headed with not many fewer lesser black-backs. Every so often a few herring gulls or common gulls would drift over though they were very much in the minority. As I got to the steps down into Pennington Flash a couple of first-Winter herring gulls flew over in the company of a third-Winter yellow-legged gull, the difference in structure of the birds being really striking — the yellow-legged being bigger, longer winged and front heavy, and with a dirty great beak to boot.

It was a noisy twilight walk down the path to Ramsdales Hide: jays and magpies called in the trees, gulls and lapwings called in the background from the flash and woodpigeons crashed and cooed as they settled down to roost. A couple of dozen each of teal and mallard loafed about on the pool by Ramsdales and five dabchicks fussed about busily by the reed margins.

By Ramsdales Hide

The pools by the Tom Edmondson and Pengy's hides were thick with gadwalls and shovelers with at least fifty of the former, most of which seemed to be pairing up already.

There were quite a few gulls on the flash. There must have been more than five hundred black-headed gulls scattered around. Out in mid water there was a raft of a hundred or more lesser black-backs with a lot of great black-backs further behind. There were a few herring gulls and common gulls about but only in low double figures. Further yet there was a huge raft of big gulls I couldn't identify in the gloom. A Mediterranean gull flew in, circled the Horrocks spit and flew off towards the sailing club. The bits of black in its primary feathers suggested it was a second-Winter bird.

Pennington Flash

The great crested grebes and female tufties were hard to pick out in the twilit gloom, as were what turned out to be half a dozen goldeneyes. I waved a cheery bye to the car park oystercatcher and wandered off for the bus back into Leigh.