Pennington Flash

Caspian gull (left) and herring gull

It's been too many weeks since I last had a walk round Pennington Flash so I thought I'd best rectify the matter. It was a cold, dry day and the walk down from St Helens Road wasn't a lot better than the paths round Leighton Moss, though with a bit less justification. Given the big spend on a new leisure venue a few bags of sand could have been afforded. I say, too often, that you can best test an organisation's professed green credentials by the state of its pedestrian access. Oddly enough, the paths were much better beyond the car park.

Picking my way along the path to the car park there was a mixed tit flock that was more an accidental confluence of parties: the long-tailed tits and goldcrests headed for the treetops by the brook and the great tits and blue tits headed for the trees by the road. There were a dozen mallards and a mute swan in the brook but what immediately caught my eye was a kingfisher flashing by.

Pennington Flash 

It was so cold even the ice cream van wasn't on. Most of the flash was frozen. Gulls — mostly black-headed with a few common — hung around on the ice while a bunch of mallards and a couple of Canada geese mugged passersby for scraps until a spaniel decided they needed chasing. A couple of robins and pied wagtails were made of sterner stuff and stood their ground. There was a patch of free water over on the other bank which was mostly full of a pair of mute swans and another patch way out in the middle of the flash holding a single great  crested grebe. As I walked on beyond the car park the ice receded from the bank enough for mallards and Canada geese to swim around then opened out further beyond the Horrocks Hide with that quarter of the flash busy with coots, mallards, gulls and cormorants. The car park oystercatcher was calling from amongst the cormorants at the end of the Horrocks spit.

Moorhen

Black-headed gulls

Great black-backs, lesser black-backs and herring gulls

The large gulls loafing on the ice in the middle of the flash looked worthy of attention. There were a lot of herring gulls and lesser black-backs of all ages, presenting an intimidating array of plumages. There were a couple of dozen great black-backs a little further out, mostly adults and at times sounding more like donkeys than gulls. There wasn't anything looking like a yellow-legged gull, wish though I may. A Caspian gull's been reported at the past few nights' roosts so I kept an eye out for any likely candidates but all the birds looking small-headed were herring gulls, presumably females, with their body feathers fluffed up in the cold. I gave up on it and turned to the goldeneyes and tufted ducks feeding and bathing at the edge of the ice. Two herring gulls swam into view, one considerably bigger than the other but that's not unusual as males are generally bigger and bulkier than females. They'd caught my interest, though, so I had a proper look at them. The bigger bird had long wings and quite a pear-shaped head that tapered at the front. As, indeed, did the bill which was proportionately half as long again as any of the other herring gulls. A Caspian gull, then, was it the same second-Winter bird that had been reported? I frankly struggled, not least because the sun was low in the sky setting the bird into silhouette half the time. I got the impression of a pale, streaky hood and a darker, more heavily streaked hind neck and breast and dark, banded upperparts but I wasn't at all sure it wasn't a first-Winter bird.

Caspian gull

Horrocks Hide was locked and out of bounds. Tom Edmondson and Ramsdales were both open, overlooking pools entirely frozen. The pool at Pengy's was mostly frozen, there was a patch of open water about the size of a double bed full of a family of mute swans.

At the Tom Edmondson Hide 

At Ramsdales

The sun had set below the clouds on the horizon and the temperature had suddenly dropped. I didn't hold much hopes of the Bunting Hide, all the small birds would have been settling in to roost by now. I accidentally flushed a dozen magpies and half a dozen moorhens as I arrived in the hide. The moorhens were soon back and squabbling below the feeders. Robins and dunnocks flitted in and out to feed on the bird tables, as did a coal tit and a couple of reed buntings. Seeing the reed buntings reminded me that I hadn't seen any finches at all this visit so I decided to hang on to see if any chaffinches came along. It took quarter of an hour for the first and only chaffinch, a male, to turn up.

I decided to call it quits. I didn't fancy the slide back to St Helens Road so I took a cut across the golf course to get the 597 bus from the Sports Village. A late bonus was half a dozen goosanders in Westleigh Brook as I passed by in the dusk.

Pennington Flash