Pennington Flash

Gadwall

After another morning of biblical rainfall I needed to get out and get some birdwatching done, I'm not at all impressed with my performance this month and my joints need some movement persuading into them. So I headed over to Pennington Flash and got there this time.

Walking towards the car park 

Autumn was definitely in the air, the winds had stripped some of the trees. Robins sang at the St Helens Road entrance and a pair of goldcrests fossicked about in the elderberry bushes. I hadn't gone far when I bumped into the first mixed tit flock of the afternoon, a lot of long-tailed tits and blue tits with great tits and a nuthatch. I couldn't be sure if the chiffchaff calling in the big white poplar was part of the troupe or not.

The car park oystercatcher

I was surprised by how few people were about, it's usually a crowd scene mid-afternoon. I couldn't blame the weather, it was becoming a very pleasant afternoon. Consequently there weren't many birds on the car park, perhaps a couple of dozen mallards with a few Canada geese and black-headed gulls. The car park oystercatcher provided one constant in an ever- changing world. A couple of Muscovy ducks dozed on the bank, I couldn't find the Egyptian goose that had been reported earlier today.

Out on the water there were big rafts of tufted ducks and coots and smaller rafts of black-headed gulls, lesser black-backs and herring gulls. A few cormorants fished midwater with about a dozen great crested grebes.

Lapwings and cormorants

There must have been at least fifty lapwings at the end of the spit at the Horrocks Hide, jostling for space with mallards and cormorants. A few teal dabbled by the waterside with more mallards.

At the Tom Edmondson Hide 

A kingfisher zipped across the pool as I sat down at the Tom Edmondson Hide. A coot was the only bird on the pools. A hawker patrolling the bushes by the hide confused me at first until I realised that "it" was a common hawker and three migrant hawkers. A Southern hawker flew in from Pengy's pool just as I was feeling confident I'd sorted out all the runners and riders.

At Ramsdales Hide

Ramsdales looked just as quiet as first until I found where the teal and shovelers were dozing under a bank.

Walking back I bumped into another mixed tit flock, this one including a couple of goldcrests and a chiffchaff.

Gadwall

A dozen gadwall cruised around Pengy's pool, the drakes looking very spruce and a few pairs already sorted out.

Pengy's pool 

The feeding station at the Bunting Hide was ankle-deep with water. Moorhens cruised about while great tits squabbled over the last fat ball in the feeder. Every so often they'd be so busy squabbling a coal tit would be able to slip in for a feed. At which point a blue tit would chase it off, at which point the great tits would notice what was going on and chase them both off. Young chaffinches flitted in and out, the males starting to moult into adult plumage with caps and napes in greys and pale slate blues.

Shoveler

The pool at the Charlie Owen Hide was busy with sleepy gadwalls, teal and shovelers with another dozen gadwalls dancing round each other in one corner.

Shovelers

Gadwall and dabchick

There were half a dozen dabchicks on the pool including one loafing on the pond weeds with the ducks. Every so often it would catch insects within reach in the weeds like somebody eating popcorn at the pictures.

Moorhen

I walked over towards the golf course, bumping into another mixed tit flock in the willows, and headed off for Leigh Sports Village for the bus back into Leigh. It struck me that I hadn't seen or heard a single thrush, not even a blackbird, this afternoon.

Walking to the golf course 

I had a long wait for the 126 back to the Trafford Centre so I got the 34 into Monton and got the 22 from there. As always, we got in as the 25 pulled out so I got the 250 and walked home through Lostock Park. As we passed the site of the old Event City there were over two hundred black-headed gulls loafing on the tarmac with yet more coming in.