Pennington Flash

Heron

After yet another cat-filled early morning I was really too tired to go out for a walk. So I accidentally had an afternoon's wander round Pennington Flash. The way you do.

Walking down from St. Helens Road the wayside to the path was full of primulas, anemones, blackbirds and song thrushes, the trees and bushes were full of singing robins, wrens and great tits and a flock of a dozen or so redwings chattered their way through the treetops by the brook.

Tufted ducks

The car park oystercatcher was asleep with the Canada geese and mallards. There were a few hundred black-headed gulls on the Flash with perhaps a couple of dozen each of lesser black-backs and herring gulls and handfuls of common gulls and great black-backs. Small parties of tufted ducks and pairs of goldeneye fed out in midwater while a pair of gadwall dabbled by the bank.

From the Horrocks Hide

Herring gulls, lapwings and cormorants

Looking out from the Horrocks Hide all the birds were out at the far end of the spit. A couple of dozen subadult herring gulls loafed in the company of a few cormorants and a flock of lapwings. A few great crested grebes floated about pretty far out while a handful of teal loafed on the edge of the bight. Just as I was getting ready to leave a Cetti's warbler burst into song in the brambles by the hide. True to form it was invisible save for the rustling of dead leaves where it had just been.

Canada geese

Wandering down to the Tom Edmondson Hide I found a few more gadwall and some shovelers on Pengy's Pool and more teal and a heron on the little pools on the left-hand side of the path. There wasn't much on from the hide, just a pair of Canada geese and a handful of tufted ducks.

Ramsdales

A couple of dozen teal loafed on the pool by Ramsdales Hide in the company of a few mallards and a couple of shovelers. A couple of dabchicks fed by the reeds while a third bird whinnied loudly from somewhere among the teal. The usual Cetti's warbler sang from the overgrown corner by the path.

By the Bunting Hide
The lines of trees flank the path to the sports village

It was locking-up time so I didn't get a look in at the Bunting Hide. I'd had a bit of exercise despite myself and casually seen forty species of birds so it was an hour and a half well spent. 

Waves of mostly black-headed gulls passed overhead to roost as I walked over to the sports village for the bus into Leigh. I dare say there might have been something odd or special out on the gull roost today, I just didn't have the stamina for gullwatching.

This time next month there'll be a reed warbler in here