Pennington Flash

Mistle thrush

Another warm Autumn day when whatever you choose to wear will be wrong because the weather changes every twenty minutes. I keep having to remind myself that despite the weather it's gone half-past October and as far as daylight's concerned it's mid-February, I keep making plans then realising it'll be dark by then.

A week's really bad sleep even by my standards is catching up with me and today I really didn't feel like doing anything. Then I got into a maungy mood as I looked at the shovelfuls of rarities being reported from the Northern Isles and the Scillies and from the East coast of Yorkshire. The North West has been getting a bit of a share of the excitement with scattered reports of yellow-browed warblers and pallid swifts.  And I've been dipping on all sorts of stuff. Then I reminded myself that this Autumn I've seen my first red-footed falcon and my first Lapland bunting, my second purple heron and lesser yellowlegs, and my first turtle dove in decades and I need to give my head a wobble. So I sent myself off for a toddle round Pennington Flash where a fair bit can be found with pretty minimal effort, which was about my mark today.

Pennington Flash 

The car park Canada geese and black-headed gulls were busy cadging half-term scraps from passing children. There seemed to be even more coots out on the flash than last time, with a few more tufted ducks about too. The large gulls were mostly lesser black-backs, a couple of subadults had slightly paler grey saddles that made me look twice, reminding me that the baffling gullwatching season is nearly upon us. One of them was making a tidy living stealing freshwater mussels from coots as they bobbed up from underwater. A third bird had an even paler grey saddle, only slightly darker than a common gull, and a butter knife bill and it eventually dawned on me I was looking at a yellow-legged gull. I understand a couple of Caspian gulls joined the roost late afternoon. I think I may have seen one of them but I'm really not convinced of the identification. The head was rounded and the bill long, the saddle was common gull grey but it looked very front-heavy without seeming to have long wings. So not convinced.

Yellow-legged gull 

Yellow-legged gull 

Yellow-legged gull 

Everything at the Horrocks Hide was at the end of the spit. A couple of dozen black-headed gulls floated in the channel while half a dozen herring gulls, a few cormorants and lapwings and the car park oystercatcher loafed on the tip of the spit.

Gadwall and coot

A few pairs of gadwall dabbled and preened on the pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide with a few teal and shovelers. A couple of migrant hawkers patrolled the sward in front of the hide.

I wondered which species of duck had this combination of features…

…then I realised it was a gadwall and a shoveler standing side by side to preen

Ramsdales was relatively quiet: all was teals but there were plenty of them. The drakes have already started courting the females, a lot of head-bobbing dances were going on on the pool.

Coming away from Ramsdales I bumped into a large mixed tit flock including a couple of dozen long-tailed tits with great tits, blue tits and goldcrests tagging along. I spotted a greyish warbler in the canopy with a couple of great tits. I expected to find perhaps the last of the Autumn chiffchaffs, instead I found the first blackcap of Winter and a fine-looking male at that. While I was watching it the Cetti's warbler made its usual brief appearance in the brambles before diving into deep cover to start singing. Walking down to the Bunting Hide every tit flock seemed to have a goldcrest or two.

The goldcrests were all for having a nosy to see what I was up to but not for having their photos taken

The feeders at the Bunting Hide were busy with squirrels, which didn't stop the great tits and chaffinches getting in there whenever the opportunity arose. Every so often the squirrels would get preoccupied with chasing each other round the place and more small birds would get in, mostly blue tits and more great tits and chaffinches with a couple of dunnocks and coal tits and a short cameo appearance by a willow tit. I've noticed that unlike marsh tits willow tits never seem comfortable in mixed tit flocks and tend to wait for the others to move on before coming to feeders. I've certainly never seen them tag along with the crowd as it moves through the trees.

I had a very brief look at the Teal Hide. A couple of guys had all their photographic equipment laid out on all the benches and I didn't want to intrude on their privacy. I clocked the half dozen goosanders with the gadwalls and shovelers and moved on.

Pennington Flash 

I decided it was time to make tracks as I was getting bleary-eyed so another large mixed tit flock bounced across the path with half a dozen goldcrests and a couple of treecreepers.

I walked over the golf course to get the bus back to Leigh from the Sports Village, trying not to disturb the mallards, moorhens and mistle thrushes as I passed by.

A couple of hours' bleary-eyed dawdling had picked up forty-odd species of birds, which shows what a productive site this can be.

From the Horrocks Hide