Pennington Flash

Brambling, Pennington Flash

I've heard a few too many dawn choruses lately but haven't heard any warblers in the garden yet. Today I caught a chiffchaff silently fidgeting its way through the treetops on the embankment. The blue tits and great tits have been in and out all morning, together with something less than a dozen spadgers. The hen sparrow with the white tail acquired a couple of white primary feathers on her right wing in her last moult, strangely enough it seems to help as a bit of camouflage because it breaks up her outline when she's in semi-shade on a bright day.

Walking back from the shops I noticed the male sparrowhawk doing his courtship display flight high over the station. With similar things in mind a pair of rooks have settled into the oft-disputed crow's nest at the corner and were busy making babies as I passed by.

Mallard duckling, Pennington Flash

It had been a busy morning after a very busy day so my default setting was to have a doze on the sofa. I didn't want to waste a sunny day so I hauled myself over to Leigh and sleepwalked round Pennington Flash for a couple of hours.

The brook in Pennington Flash

Walking down from St. Helens Road the air was full of the songs of robins, chaffinches and wrens. Every so often a great tit or woodpigeon would pipe up. Oddly, there was literally nothing on the brook, not even a couple of dozing mallards. The damage caused by the storm flooding was very apparent, most of the bankside vegetation still flattened and muddy and here and there bits of bank have given way. By Midsummer this will all become a grown-over memory.

Oystercatcher, Pennington Flash

There were fewer birds on the flash than on my last visit. The mute swans still hung out as a herd but most of the coots, mallards and Canada geese had dispersed to nest, though a couple of ducks already had fairly big ducklings with them. There were still a few small rafts of tufted ducks and goldeneyes, none of them more than a dozen birds. There were a lot fewer gulls, too, with black-headed gulls in their dozens, lesser black-backs and herring gulls in single figures and a great black-back steaming round over by the sailing club like a dreadnought. The black-headed gulls tried to make up with noise what they lacked in numbers. A buzzard slowly soared over and floated off over the flash. A Cetti's warbler sang from the bushes behind the sausage butty van, which I think speaks volumes about the rise of this species in Greater Manchester over the past twenty years.

The car park oystercatcher was nowhere to be seen. He might have been the individual standing on his own well away from the small group at the end of the spit at the Horrocks Hide with half a dozen cormorants and some lapwings.

The pools by the paths each had at least one pair of teal on them, the larger pools also having gadwall and shovelers. Chiffchaffs and coal tits joined the songscape and goldfinches twittered in the birch trees. A buzzard flew overhead, a different bird with a darker, more contrasty head and a missing tail feather.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide

It was quiet at the Tom Edmondson Hide, just a few teal and a heron. A robin and a wren bounced around in the bushes while a Cetti's warbler sang from the brambles. A third Cetti's warbler was singing in the tradition place from the wet scrub and brambles at the corner of the path to Ramsdales.

The water had retreated at Ramsdales and the exposed mud was being taken advantage of by teal, redshanks and black-tailed godwits. A few lapwings fed on the grassy islets, it took me a while to notice a little ringed plover feeding on the bank of one of them. A couple of pairs of Canada geese were nesting, not entirely successfully judging by the abandoned egg just to one side of one nest.

Redshanks, Pennington Flash

Redshanks, Pennington Flash

Redshanks, Pennington Flash

Redshanks, Pennington Flash

A pair of redshanks were courting and mating, remarkably quietly for such noisy, excitable birds.

A dozen great crested grebes congregated on the bight. One pair penguin danced in the distance. Another pair had a very exposed nest built around a couple of tufts of sedge by one of the islands.

I'd kept hearing bits of blackcap song while I was in the hide. A pair of blackcaps were feeding in the hawthorns by the path, accompanied by bullfinches and blue tits.

I walked up to the canal then took the path round to the Teal Hide. There were more blackcaps singing in the trees by the path. I was looking to see if one of them might be amenable to having its photo taken when a willow tit came over to see what I was doing, concluded it was nothing interesting and flew over to a bramble bush to see if that would be more productive.

Garganey, Pennington Flash

Garganey, Pennington Flash

A garganey had been reported at the Teal Hide and there it was, feeding with some teal and shovelers. And for once I wasn't fighting the light to get a photo of it.

Teal, Pennington Flash

I'm probably the only person who still puts his mask on when he goes into a hide. Given that every hide managed to find a strong wind to blow through it that wasn't apparent when I was walking in the open I may have been over-cautious but better safe than sorry. I'm OK about going back to sharing my binoculars, though, and was happy to let a couple making their first visit to the flash have a good look at the garganey.

Female reed bunting, Pennington Flash

Bunting Hide was still open so I had a look in. There's usually one or two reed buntings here (it's actually named after the black-faced bunting that made an appearance here a decade ago). Today there was a flock of more than a dozen, which was nice to see, as was the similar number of stock doves. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying and failing to get a photo capturing the bright metallic lilac glint on the back of the doves' necks.

Stock dove, Pennington Flash

As usual there were a few chaffinches and bullfinches coming in and out to feed. Not as usual there was also a male brambling, almost fully moulted into his breeding finery. It was a rare treat to see one this close and not just a distant extra in a crowd scene with chaffinches.

Brambling, Pennington Flash

Male reed bunting, Pennington Flash

I had a wander back to the car park, bobbing in for a look at Pengy's Hide along the way. Great crested grebes and coots were nesting on the pool and the three-cornered leeks were in full bud among the primroses and ramsons flowering by the path.

Pengy's Pool

I strolled back down to St Helens Road and got the bus back to Leigh. I had a while to wait for the 126 to the Trafford Centre so I got the number 9 for Higher Folds and got off for a fifteen minutes' explore round Colliers Wood before walking down to get the 126 at Leigh Cemetery.

The wood's just another of those mixtures of a bit of field and some densely-planted trees by a brook that litter Greater Manchester but it's a nice enough walk and there are enough of the usual suspects to keep your eyes and ears open for.

Colliers Wood

I could have lingered as the 126 was later than scheduled due to the roadworks in Astley and I just missed the 25 bus home from the Trafford Centre. So I got the 150 and got off at St Modwen Road and walked home via Lostock Park, arriving just as the hailstorm started.

Barton Clough

It had been a good afternoon's stroll, I wonder what I might have seen had I been wide awake