Pennington Flash

Juvenile little ringed plover

I didn't fancy starting the month with yet more train cancellations so I had a couple of hours' wander round Pennington Flash. A decidedly wet lunchtime gave way to sunshine and by the time I was going home I felt distinctly overdressed.

Pennington Flash

Walking in from St Helens Road was almost like being back in Spring: robins, blackbirds, song thrushes, great tits, chaffinches, blackcaps, all singing in full voice. This was pretty much a feature of the afternoon, with chiffchaffs, willow, reed and sedge warblers joining the chorus as I wandered round. The usual Cetti's warbler was quiet but the one by the Horrocks Hide was in full song.

There wasn't a lot out on the flash itself, just a few lesser black-backs, mallards and great crested grebes and a lone common tern sat on one of the buoys. I was struck by the complete absence of swifts and hirundines. The Canada geese, mute swans and a lot of the mallards were on the car park demanding food with menaces. It's a month early for the Egyptian geese to be about but that didn't stop me looking for them.

Juvenile pied wagtail

The Horrocks Hide was full of kids being kids. Mallards and coots loafed on the shingle on the spit while woodpigeons, lapwings and pied wagtails fed on the grassy bits. The absence of cormorants and herring gulls at the end of the spit was striking.

Heron

It was stonkingly quiet at the Tom Edmondson Hide, just a couple of coots and a heron. It came as a relief when a couple of woodpigeons clattered in to provide a bit if variety.

At first sight Ramsdales looked quiet, too, with just a family of mallards and a pair of loafing gadwalls. Then I noticed that there was a little ringed plover on the bank of one of the islands. And a littler little ringed plover. And another. The pair of plovers had three youngsters in tow. These were very active and old enough to be able to flap their wings enough to get themselves off the ground for a couple of seconds from a running jump.

Juvenile little ringed plover

The Bunting Hide was quiet save a dozen stock doves and a dozen squirrels, which might explain why it was quiet. A family of long-tailed tits bounced around the trees by the path while a couple of moorhens squabbled in the undergrowth. By the time I got to the Teal Hide it was locked up.

Stock dove

I hadn't expected much, just a gentle potter about, but I noticed forty-odd species of birds kicking about while I was wandering round.

I stopped on the bridge to admire a pike a couple had spotted lurking in the brook. I've seen them a few times here, including one a couple of feet long, I don't know why it's such a favoured place.

As usual the bus home was pulling out as the bus I was on pulled into the Trafford Centre so I got the 250 into Trafford Park and walked home through Lostock Park. The blackcap and the chiffchaff were almost drowned out by singing blackbirds and robins. A couple of dozen starlings were feeding with the usual thirty or forty woodpigeons on the school playing field as I got home.

The pool opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide