Pennington Flash

Egyptian goose

I was still feeling the effects of the past couple of days and didn't feel like doing much so I dragged myself over to Pennington Flash for a couple of hours' soft ambling about.

Fish frenzy

The stretch between St Helens Road and the car park was dead quiet, even the woodpigeons were quiet. There was a lot of splashing about on the brook as I crossed the bridge, a shoal of roaches were catching the emerging midges before they could take flight and start bothering passers by.

Egyptian geese

I had a scan round the flash from the car park. There were the usual mallards and Canada geese on the lookout for kiddies with bags of food for them. The mute swans were over on the other side of the flash with a few more mallards. There was a raft of over a hundred coots near the shore, further out there were small rafts of a dozen or so black-headed gulls and yet further out towards the sailing club there were rafts of dozens of large gulls, nearly all lesser black-backs with a few herring gulls. There were a few great crested grebes but most of them were in the bight by Ramsdales. A flock of fifty-odd swifts hawked low over the water in the company of a similar number of sand martins and a dozen or so house martins. By far the noisiest birds on the flash were four common terns that were chasing each other about.

There's the beginning of a passage of common scoters going on at the moment and one was spotted here this morning, it had moved on before I arrived. Which didn't stop me having a look for it just in case.

I had one last scan of the shorelines before moving on in the hope that the Egyptian geese were about and available for being seen. They arrived at the beginning of the month, as usual, but I've had no luck so far. It looked like I was having no luck today, too, until I realised they were sat at my feet watching what I was up to. Just two birds this year, not the usual three.

Lesser black-back

There wasn't a lot to be seen from the Horrocks Hide and both the Tom Edmondson Hide and Ramsdales were fairly quiet. There were plenty of mallards about but other ducks were conspicuous by their absence. The usual Cetti's warbler at the corner by Ramsdales could only muster a few bursts of song, barely finishing the phrase each time. Even the lapwings were being unusually self-effacing.

I followed the path round to the Teal Hide. It was approaching teatime so the warblers were starting to lumber up, the chiffchaffs were making the most noise, a few blackcaps burbled from the hawthorns by the canal and a garden warbler had a quick gallop of song from the depths of the willows.

The Teal Hide was the busiest of the day, mostly with mallards, black-headed gulls and magpies. A couple of families of moorhens fussed about the reeds and a dabchick bobbed about in the only deep water on the pool. A few lapwings loafed on the little islands and the car park oystercatcher poked around in the mud by the black-headed gulls. There were just half a dozen young gadwalls, I wonder if the adults are amongst the huge moulting flock on Woolston Eyes. A couple of teal flew in just to make up numbers.

The feeders were down at the Bunting Hide so it was quiet. A couple of robins hunted scraps on the bird tables while a family of great tits checked out the scraps left behind by messy squirrels. A small shape moving about in the undergrowth turned out to be a young-looking chiffchaff.

Robim

A

Chiffchaff

Chiffchaff

Even though it was so quiet it had been a surprisingly productive visit, over forty species recorded over a couple of hours.