Pennington and beyond

Goldcrest, Lower Broughton

The gulls arrived on the school playing field with the school bell. by half nine there were thirty-five lesser black-backs together with half a dozen herring gulls and a handful of black-headed gulls. I suspect there's a passage going on, most of the morning birds were coming in as others were leaving.

I went over to Pennington Flash for a wander. I'd seen reports that the Egyptian geese were back, if they were around this afternoon I didn't see them. Still, there was plenty enough around to be getting on with.

Juvenile black-headed gull, Pennington Flash

Canada geese and goslings, Pennington Flash

There were young birds everywhere. On the flash by the car park some of the Canada geese had small, fluffy goslings while others had nearly full-grown youngsters starting to take on a brown and beige version of the adults' neck and head pattern. Most of the young mallards, lapwings and black-headed gulls were nearly full grown, the gulls flying strongly now. The great crested grebes are full grown and looking odd, having the same shape as the adults but still in humbug stripes.

Juvenile lapwing, Pennington Flash

The small birds were less obvious, aside from family parties of blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits. The blackcaps were the only warblers doing much singing, the reed warblers, chiffchaffs and willow warblers tending to be busy and even the Cetti's warbler by Ramsdales only gave a very brief snatch of song. It's not often you see a Cetti's warbler before you hear it.

The ducks are all in eclipse now, the mallards and gadwalls loafing in groups and the shovelers going missing, hiding in deep cover.

There were more butterflies about, mostly speckled woods with a few red admirals and large whites in the open spaces. I'm starting to feel less worried about them now.

From Ramsdales Hide

I could only find one of the little ringed plovers on Ramsdales, one of the youngsters, but there's more than plenty of cover for them to hide in now.

There was literally nothing at the Bunting Hide today, which is unusual even when there's no food in the feeders.

Some of the coots and black-headed gulls looked to be still sitting on nests at the Teal Hide, others had very noisy small chicks. A couple of dozen tufted ducks tried to doze amidst the noise.

Black-headed gull chick with mallard, Pennington Flash

I'd seen a few common blue damselflies flitting about already on my walk. The Teal pool was electric with them, it was impossible to look anywhere on the water without there being lots of flashes of bright blue to distract you. The blue of the broad-bodied chasers is more sober but there's so much body involved they were just as distracting. I was deep into identifying dragonflies when a brown shape flew into view. Only my second-ever hummingbird hawk moth and I spent most of my time watching it wondering what sort of dragonfly flies like that.

I wandered back through the car park, checking again for Egyptian geese, and got the bus back into Leigh. I had three options in mind for where to visit next, the V1 bus to Manchester was the first to arrive at the bus station so I got that to Salford Cresent.

I had a walk through Peel Park to a backdrop of singing blackbirds and blackcaps and the calls of black-headed gulls on the river. There were a few mallards and mute swans idling on the water and half a dozen cormorants and a heron were almost hidden in the trees upstream.

River Irwell, Peel Park 

I walked down the river to Lower Broughton, hoping to see goosanders. I didn't see any until I got to the shingle bank on the bend, just the four young redheads. They were mostly busy preening and dozing.

Goosander, Lower Broughton

Goosander, Lower Broughton

Goosander, Lower Broughton

A goldcrest came down from the treetops to see what I was, established I wasn't any trouble and got on with collecting beakfuls of insects for a brood somewhere. Being just an arm's length away and flitting about busily I was pushing my luck trying to get any photos but managed to get two where it was possible to see that there was a bird there and it might be a goldcrest.

The river bank was busy with small tortoiseshells, large whites and large skippers, which kept one of the local cats distracted from any small birds that might have been about.

I got to Broughton Bridge, and the usual family of grey wagtails, then went into Manchester for my bus home after a productive couple of short walks.