Pennington Flash

Long-tailed tit

The weather looked like being okay for a walk but after oversleeping due to a late night I was just in the mood for a couple of hours' pottering about so I headed over to Pennington Flash for the afternoon. Sure as eggs it started raining the moment I stepped off the bus but it was never heavy and a gusty wind kept the showers moving.

It was very quiet going in from St Helens Road, I'm not sure that the cause was the female sparrowhawk that flew across the path, there weren't the usual noisy roll calls in the hedgerows when it had gone. The water was very high on the brook, presaging the very high waters on the flash and the pools.

Going over the brook

The first thing I noticed when I reached the car park was the crowd of mallards, coots and black-headed gulls scrounging food from a bloke and his young son. They did a good job of managing the crowd, even once it was joined by Canada geese and a Muscovy duck.

Pochards

The second thing I noticed was that the water had almost completely submerged the bank, leaving half a dozen rocks for mallards and coots to squabble over while another Muscovy duck played king of the castle. A raft of pochards, all drakes, drifting by the mouth of the brook was a touch of Winter. As were the goldeneyes over by the far bank with the tufted ducks and black-headed gulls. Further out that way a herd of mute swans hugged the bank and a raft of large gulls, considerably more herring gulls than lesser black-backs, wasn't far out from that bank. The water was very choppy so low-lying birds like the great crested grebes and cormorant were distant snakey necks sticking out of the water.

Lapwings, cormorants, herring gulls and mute swans

All the hatches were battened down at the Horrocks Hide and when I unlatched the window flap I understood why. Britain shivers. The spit was nearly all underwater except for an island formed by the mound at the end. A couple of dozen cormorants loafed at the tip with some herring gulls, a flock of lapwings and a dozen teal. Something spooked the lapwings and they took flight, a couple of snipe going along for the ride. After a two minute tour of the bight they all settled back down on the spit and the snipe disappeared from view.

Out on the water there were more goldeneyes and herring gulls and a raft of tufted ducks shadowed the bank near The Point opposite. A large duck out in midwater had puzzled me, I could see it was bigger than a nearby grebe and it had a dark head but I couldn't make much out beyond the waves. I was lucky as the wind calmed down a bit so when I found it again I could see that it had a pale back and the low-lying heavy look of a scaup. The combination of dark head and pale back identified as a drake, presumably one of the couple of first-Winters reported here yesterday.

Reedbed opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide 

A couple of water rails squealed at each other in the reedbed opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide. I tried in vain to spot them. A kestrel flew in and hovered over the reedbed for a minute before moving on.

Teal

The pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide was busy with ducks. The gadwalls and shovelers were already paired up, over at the far end a couple of dozen drake teal were head-bobbing like billy-o to impress half a dozen ducks.

Coot, gadwalls and dabchick

The teal had muscled the dabchicks away from their favoured fishing area, it made a nice change to see them close to with the gadwalls.

Long-tailed tit

A mixed tit flock was busy in the reeds, blue tits pulling the seed heads to bits, long-tailed tits and goldcrests being a bit more delicate in their hunting. The great tits in the flock kept to the brambles. I wasn't sure if the willow tit feeding in the brambles in front of the hide was part of the flock or just a passerby swept up in the rush.

Willow tit

The pool at Ramsdales was inundated, just the grass at the top of the islands poking through. A few coots fossicked about and a couple of dabchicks hinneyed from the reeds. Another mixed tit flock bobbed and weaved its way through the elderberries and hawthorns by the side.

I walked back down and had a look at Pengy's pool which was busy with gadwalls, shovelers and mallards. It's an astonishingly good Autumn for gadwalls here.

By the Bunting Hide 

I could hear but not see siskins in the trees. I found them at the Bunting Hide working their way through the alders with a couple of goldfinches. Other than that the Bunting Hide was literally a washout. Unsurprisingly nobody had been able to fill any of the feeders.

From the Charlie Owen Hide 

The island at the Charlie Owen Hide was just — and only just — big enough to accommodate five tightly packed mallards. There were more coots and gadwall and a couple of dabchicks chased each other round the block a few times.

I walked across the golf course and into the sports village for the bus into Leigh. It seemed to take forever to get back home from Leigh.