Pennington Flash

Gadwall

I had an afternoon stroll round Pennington Flash, which was unusually quiet of people but very busy with birds. 

Pennington Flash

Walking down the path from St. Helens Road I could hear a couple of mixed tit flocks in the distance so I decided to take the path through the woodland to the Southern margin of the flash. It wasn't until I got within sight of the flash that I caught up with one of them: a couple of dozen long-tailed tits a dozen blue tits and a couple of nuthatches. They bounced around in the willows defying every attempt at photography. Always a delight to see, though. There seemed to be a robin staking a claim to a Winter territory from every third bush.

Coots and lesser black-back

The flash was heavily peppered with coots. There were plenty of mute swans about, most of the cygnets now in that curiously patchy beige and cream stage of moult. The rafts of tufted ducks were back, as were the first of the Winter wigeons, the drakes still in eclipse unlike the mallards, gadwall and most of the shovelers. Lines of Canada geese snaked their way between the car park and the sailing club. There were a couple of dozen black headed gulls but not many large gulls though judging by the number of lesser black-backs flying overhead on the way in there'd be plenty more coming in to roost. The loud and insistent small bird noise was a full-sized young great crested grebe not taking its parent's hint that it should be fishing for itself.

Pennington Flash

At the car park I had a speculative look round for the Egyptian geese but they seem to have moved on their mysterious way. I expect they'll suddenly arrive again after midsummer next year. No show from the car park oystercatcher either. A lot of calling heralded a skein of ninety-five pink-footed geese flying south while migrant hawkers whizzed around low over the vegetation at the water's edge.

The view from the F.W.Horrocks Hide

The volunteers have done a sterling job of clearing the brushwood from in front of the Horrocks Hide and the spit. It looks a bit stark at the moment but it'll suit the waders a lot better and it'll mellow over Winter. That, and the rise in water level after the recent rains, made for a very different landscape from the last visit.

Black-headed gulls

Coots

Lapwings, black-headed gulls, mute swans and cormorants

There were a few dozen lapwings loafing and dozing on the spit with at least two snipe in the grass with them. Teal dabbled in the water margins while shovelers, tufties and coots fed in the deeper water. Half a dozen cormorants were hanging out to dry at the end of the spit and there was a raft of a couple of dozen large gulls, equal numbers or herring and lesser black-backs, at the entrance to the bight.

The pool opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide was unusually birdless. The Tom Edmondson pool was full of pairs of gadwall. More migrant hawkers patrolled the bramble patch by the hide.

Shovelers and a teal

There had been scrub clearance on the islands at Ramsdales, too, which gave fifty-odd teal somewhere to doze. There were also more than a dozen shovelers, the drakes in a motley array of eclipse and partial eclipse colours. A young Cetti's warbler assayed a bit of song from the reeds on the far side, to be quickly answered by an assertive burst of song from a rival in the brambles next to the hide.

From Pengy's Hide

I walked round to the Bunting Hide, popping in at Pengy's along the way. Pengy's was littered with gadwall and mallard, the gadwall drifting about in groups busy with whistling and head-bobbing courtship dances. There were a few more wigeon here, too.

The Bunting Hide was busy with squirrels and moorhens, the small birds tending to stick to the feeders at the margins of the clearing. A small group of chaffinches fed on the ground while pairs of great tits tried to monopolise the feeders. A few blue tits and a coal tit snuck in while a willow tit barged in every time the coast was clear, obviously very intent on building up Winter caches. Something that's been striking me repeatedly lately is just how brightly coloured the willow tits are here: their underparts are a light rusty brown, darker and richer on the flanks. I quickly gave up trying to get any photos today. I'd been wondering where all the herons were. At least one of them was lurking in the reeds by this clearing.

Heron

I left by the path across the golf course and walked through the sports village for the bus back into Leigh. A nice, quiet potter about.