Pennington Flash

Tufted ducks and a coot

The past few weeks I've skirted round Pennington Flash without actually stopping for a wander round so I thought it was time I did something about that. I had an early lunch, made sure the cat and the birds had enough to tide them over (the sparrows and starlings are demolishing four fat balls a day at the moment) and got the 132 from the Trafford Centre to Sale Lane, got the V1 to Leigh from there and the 34 out to Pennington Flash. (I could have set out half an hour earlier or later and got the 126 straight to Leigh). I had hopes of seeing a kingfisher but I'd settle for anything that was on offer.

Pennington Flash 

The narcissi and primroses at the entrance to Pennington Flash weren't the only signs of Spring. Blue tits sang, great tits staked out an old woodpecker hole as a potential nest and magpies and carrion crows flew around with bits of stick in their beaks. 

Great crested grebes

The car park was busy with both people and birds, it was a cold, dry Saturday afternoon occasionally threatening to show a bit of sunshine. The mute swans and Canada geese were under strength, possibly because of the avian flu, the mallards were mostly on the small pools and brooks rather than the flash. Small parties of tufted ducks bobbed about just offshore, a dozen goldeneyes stuck to the middle of the flash. The great crested grebes were all paired up and every so often one or other pair would spend a few minutes head bobbing and mirroring each other's swaying and head shaking. It's a long time since I last watched the penguin dance, I keep hoping these preliminaries will progress while I'm watching.

This time of year it's easy to tell the male (right) from the female in a pair of great crested grebes

Canada geese and black-headed gulls

There were plenty of black-headed gulls on the car park with the waterfowl, the large gulls were in the raft of mostly lesser black-backs out in midwater. There were only a couple of dozen herring gulls about, split between that raft and the end of the Horrocks spit. A few common gulls loafed with the black-headed gulls by the Horrocks Hide. There was just the one great black-back that I could see, flying overhead in a typically lumbering fashion.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

It was an odd scene at the Tom Edmondson Hide: no herons or shovelers to be seen. I'd seen a couple of herons flying about earlier on but for once none were loafing on the banks. A bit of searching round found one on a treetop nest deep in the trees to the left of the hide. The only birds on the pool were a few tufted ducks and coots. Just as I was thinking of moving on a flash of orange and blue shooting across the pool and disappearing into the reeds was my first kingfisher of the year.

Mute swan

I could scarce see over the reeds at Ramsdales (I don't remember them being that high earlier this Winter). A dozen teal dabbled about in the pools with a few moorhens.

Three-cornered leeks at Pengy's Hide 

Great tit

Wandering over to Pengy's I could hear the hinneying of dabchicks and the quarreling of coots on the pool behind the hedgerows. Pengy's pool was full of gadwalls, coots and tufties. The trees next to the hide were bristling with great tits and blue tits.

Robin

Reed bunting

The Bunting Hide was jam-packed with birds. Great tits, blue tits and long-tailed tits monopolised the fat ball feeders. Mallards, moorhens and stock doves fed on the ground. Robins, chaffinches, bullfinches and rather a lot of reed buntings fed on the seed on the bird tables. It's lovely to see a dozen or more reed buntings in one place.

Female bullfinch

Reed buntings

I took the rough path to the Teal Hide. It's usually very wet along here, it was barely muddy today and made me wonder all the more about the state of the paths at Elton Reservoir the other day. I was just thinking that I hadn't seen any coal tits today when one bobbed up and started feeding in the tree just in front of me. After seeing the kingfisher I reckoned I still had one wish left so I concentrated on the thought that I've never seen a Humes leaf warbler. A pair of willow tits came over to see what I was up to.

From the Teal Hide 

It turned out that all the shovelers were on the Teal Hide with a crowd of goosanders. They were nearly all unpaired drakes, which I hope means that pairs are lurking in quiet places intent on making baby shovelers.

Teal and shovelers

Shovelers and goosanders

I got the bus back to Leigh and decided to go home the long way round rather than wait fifty minutes for the next 126 to the Trafford Centre. I got the 516 to Horwich to see if there was anything about along the way. In the event I was just counting woodpigeons and corvids. 

The plan was to get off and get the train at Horwich Parkway into Manchester, the plan was. Unfortunately I'd forgotten to check the fixture list: Bolton were playing at home and my arrival coincided with kicking out time. I got to the station at the same time as the fans, they both looked a bit surly so I walked into Horwich for the bus into Bolton, which gave me the chance to see that the brook by the dual carriageway was busy with wagtails, both grey and pied, and reed buntings and a coal tit sang from the tree by the entrance to the Tesco car park.

Given the state of the traffic and the buses I ended up catching the 575 Wigan bus, getting off at Blackrod Station and getting the next train to Manchester from there. A song thrush serenaded me as I waited in the twilight, not a bad way to end a productive and peculiar afternoon's birdwatching.

An accidental badger