Pennington Flash

Juvenile robin

The afternoon's weather was set for fair so I bobbed over to Pennington Flash for a wander round. 

The juvenile peregrine was perched on the Beyond building again as I arrived at the Trafford Centre bus station (it was on the letter B today) and there were plenty enough pigeons to keep it going awhile yet.

The roadworks at Boothstown and Astley added half an hour to the journey to Leigh but the buses down St Helens Road are frequent enough for this not to be an issue. As I turned onto the path into Pennington Flash a blackcap was singing loudly in the trees and there was the furtive sounds of robins deep undercover.

The brook running out of the flash

The brook running out of the flash was running deep and high so I wasn't altogether surprised to see the flash lapping at the sides of the car park. It was a busy school holiday afternoon so the mallards and mute swans were busy mugging passersby for food, the Canada geese were being strangely standoffish and keeping their distance.

Great crested grebe

Great crested grebes 

For some reason there was a flock of a couple of dozen great crested grebes close to the shore with the coots and tufted ducks. If they're congregating in these numbers it's usually at the entrance to the bight at the end of the Horrocks spit. There were a few black-headed gulls about but not in any great number. Unlike the lesser black-backs, there were getting on for a hundred of them in large rafts out in the middle of the flash with a dozen or so herring gulls. Just beyond them a couple of drake common scoters bobbed about in the breeze. I was surprised not to see any hirundines or swifts over the water, perhaps it was that bit too breezy for them. There was just the one passing common tern, too.

From the Horrocks Hide 

The spit at the Horrocks Hide was mostly underwater, a few mallards bobbing about close to, a raft of coots were feeding off the freshwater mussel bed just off the spit and a couple of lapwings loafed deep in the vegetation at the end. 

I didn't stop long, there wasn't a lot to see and the hide was occupied by a couple of lads trying the contents of a nitrous oxide container. I would have let sleeping dogs lie but they were being very noisy about it and when I asked them nicely to quieten down a bit they shouted all the more and turned the volume up on whatever it was they were watching on their 'phone. I messed with their heads by giving them Jonathan and Darlene Edwards' rendition of "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" at full blast and left them to it. I bumped into lots of younger children in the other hides and they were all brilliant, I was happy to lend them my bins for a better look at the birds.

Across from the Tom Edmondson Hide 

The pool across the way from the Tom Edmondson Hide was relatively quiet with just a few young mallards and gadwalls and not a sign of any of the usual Cetti's warbler, reed warbler or reed bunting. 

From the Tom Edmondson Hide

The pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide was busy with more young mallards and gadwalls and a pair of swans. A couple of herons dozed in deep cover on one bank and a little egret flew low overhead on its way to the flash. A couple of swallows flew by, a small flock of half a dozen sand martins hawked high over the pools and a buzzard soared by way above them. I kept hearing a dabchick hinneying but it was a while before it showed itself. The pool was sheltered enough for a few common blue damselflies to be zipping round low over the water and a brown hawker patrolled the tops of the reeds.

Juvenile blackcap

The water was very high at Ramsdales with only a herd of young Canada geese cruising round the tops of the islands. A young blackcap feasting on elderberries by the hide was a nice consolation prize.

Gadwall 

Pengy's pool was awash and full of gadwall, returning adults joining the youngsters. They clustered near the hide with a couple of very obliging dabchicks.

Dabchick

Dabchicks and gadwall

At the Bunting Hide 

The feeding station at the Bunting Hide was awash and nobody had been able to top up the feeders. Half a dozen mallards dabbled in front of the hide and a young robin, starting to sprout red breast feathers, tried all the bird tables just in case.

Heron

There were a couple of dozen more gadwalls with the mallards, coots and moorhens on the pool at the Charlie Owen Hide. A couple of dabchicks played hard to get in the reeds, some tufted ducks mingled with the gadwalls and one of last year's herons stalked the ditch in front of the hide.

At the Charlie Owen Hide 

I decided on walking over the golf course and past the sports village for the bus back into Leigh. A migrant hawker patrolled the Himalayan balsam along the brook by the hotel.

Heading for the golf course 

The bus back to the Trafford Centre wasn't due for forty minutes so I only had ten minutes to wait for the one before it. (The drivers are more stressed out about the delays than the passengers because they're having to deal with them all day every day.) As we came off Barton Bridge for the exit to the Trafford Centre there was a flock of more than a hundred black-headed gulls on the vacant lot by Beyond, the peregrine had gone out a-hunting and was nowhere to be seen, and a dozen rabbits were grazing the grass by the traffic lights. Which isn't a bad end to a trip out.

Pengy's pool