Pennington Flash

Little egret

After the running about of the last few days I just wanted a simple toddle round on what had become a pleasant Autumnal day. I played bus stop bingo: if the 256 arrived first I'd have a wander round Wellacre Country Park, if the 25 I'd see if I could connect with the 126 for a walk round Pennington Flash.

Walking in from St Helens Road
There's a spooky look to white poplars in Autumn.

Walking into Pennington Flash from St Helens Road was eerily quiet. The road's closed for yet more repair work but that didn't stop there being plenty of people about. Even so it was an oddly quiet walk. A heron and a woodpigeon flew overhead, a wren flitted silently across the path and a magpie muttered as the branch it landed on bent a bit too far for its liking.

Black-headed gulls

I reached the car park where the usual motley assemblage of mute swans, Canada geese, mallards and black-headed gulls were mugging for scraps. The mallards are barely out of eclipse plumage and are already head-bobbing and quacking for the ladies. The Egyptian geese have moved on, I wonder where to as much as I wonder where from, there aren't reports of their peregrinations round the region. There were plenty of coots on the flash as well as a couple of rafts of tufted ducks, each a couple of dozen birds strong. Out on the middle of the flash, beyond the coots and pairs of great crested grebes, a loose raft of a few dozen herring gulls and lesser black-backs drifted and bathed. I scanned round to see if there were any terms about but every likely prospect in the distance drifted in closer and turned out to be a young black-headed gull.

From the Horrocks Hide
Tufted ducks and great crested grebes, cormorant and a dabchick.

I worked my way through the crowds by the visitor centre and had a look from the Horrocks Hide. The water was high and half the spit was submerged. A line of cormorants, herring gulls, Canada geese and lapwings ran the edge of the far end of the spit. There wasn't a right lot closer to the hide, just a couple of coots. Stretched across the middle of the channel beyond the spit was a raft of a few dozen tufted ducks and great crested grebes, a few cormorants and dabchicks fished in the bight.

So far it had been very quiet indeed for small birds. As I walked down the path a couple of robins did a few limbering up exercises before deciding not to sing. Then I noticed some leaves moving the wrong way so I stood still and let the mixed tit flock come to me. Oddly enough it was the goldcrests and treecreeper I saw first. A dozen long-tailed tits soon appeared then a few blue tits, great tits and chiffchaffs. And all, except for one long-tailed tit, in complete silence.

Tom Edmondson Hide 

The Tom Edmondson Hide was busy with head-bobbing gadwalls. A family of mute swans steamed through one way while a few coot quarreled by the other way. The pool on the other side of the path was quiet, a couple of teal lurking in the reeds and a young shoveler chugging past and disappearing into the reeds.

Gadwalls, Tom Edmondson Hide 

Teal and shovelers, Ramsdales Hide 

The reeds had been cut back at Ramsdales Hide the better to see a couple of dozen teal dozing on the islands with a few shovelers. The drake shovelers were still in eclipse plumage and some of the teal hadn't completely moulted out of it. A little egret stalked the water margins while a young heron lurked by the reeds. I'd been hoping to hear the usual Cetti's warbler in the wet scrub in the corner and was surprised to hear two singing scraps of song.

At Ramsdales Hide 

Walking towards the canal

Pennington Flash 

Tufted ducks and great crested grebes 

I decided not to head back into the crowds so I walked up to the rucks and thence to Slag Lane. I got better views of the birds on the Horrocks spit from this end and bumped into another silent mixed tit flock on the Northern shore. As I walked up the slope a couple of buzzards flying low overhead were harassed by carrion crows. A kestrel hovered over the meadows by Slag Lane.

Buzzard

Walking to Slag Lane 

I debated carrying on through Byrom Hall Wood but the 588 to Lowton passed me as I was about to cross Slag Lane which meant it would be coming back to Leigh in five minutes' time so I took the hint. It was supposed to be an afternoon's toddling about after all.