Pennington Flash

Kingfisher 

The weather was looking good so I thought I'd start the week with a wander round Pennington Flash. I was tempted to go out chasing yellow-browed warblers but they're still in the fidgeting about stage of passage, better to get a productive day in after the weekend's hiatus just to keep morale up. And besides, you never know your luck and Pennington Flash is as likely to have a yellow-browed warbler hiding in it's tit flocks as anyplace else. [Spoiler alert: not for me today.]

Pennington Flash 

There's roadworks in Leigh so the 610 was diverted down Westleigh Way and when we joined St Helens Road it was very busy with lunchtime traffic so it took a while to get across to Pennington Flash. When I got over I decided to take a meandering walk through the woodland South of the flash to see what was about. It felt very quiet, save the calls of jackdaws overhead, but there were lots of faint rustlings that weren't falling leaves and contact calls so faint I'd be convincing myself they were hallucinatory illusions caused by ear wax then I'd spot the robin, dunnock or great tit that made them as it flitted through the undergrowth three or four trees away. Every so often I'd pass a patch of bramble or dogwood and be reassured by a scolding wren.

I got to a willow hedge by one of the paths and heard some more of those "am I really hearing anything noises." I had an excuse this time, the contact noises made by goldcrests and treecreepers are very quiet and quite high on the register. I saw the treecreeper first as it disappeared round a thick stick, the goldcrests took some finding and were very fidgety even by their standards. I was looking for the long-tailed tits I was hearing, and failing dismally, when a willow tit jumped out of the bush I was standing beside, made an extremely rude noise then disappeared when it came.

Pennington Flash 

I meandered round to the flash, the long-tailed tits in the third flock I encountered putting me out of my misery and making an appearance as they bounced through an ash tree. That flock had a bullfinch in tow which struck me as unusual. Even more unusually none of these flocks seemed to have any blue tits with them.

Pennington Flash 

The flash was as close to being a mill pond as it ever gets. A huge raft of close on a hundred coots drifted by the sailing club and there were more, smaller, rafts of them dotted about. None of the rafts of tufted ducks were more than a couple of dozen birds but there were plenty of them. Out in midwater a few lesser black-backs and herring gulls loafed about, cormorants and great crested grebes were busy fishing.

Tufted ducks 

I looked in vain for any pochards or goldeneyes, serves me right for being impatient for Winter. I couldn't find any common gulls either. I did find a yellow-legged gull, though, all beak and shoulders. I struggled to put an age to it, it looked too "clean" for a first-Winter bird but it didn't have a particularly clean grey saddle so I wasn't convinced it was a second-Winter bird. The coots and tufties near the bank were fishing for freshwater mussels. I was impressed by the way they dealt with them once they had them, it can't be easy to crack them open when you're floating on the water and can't hold them down into a hard surface to keep them steady. It was a lot like watching a chaffinch deal with the husk of a sunflower seed.

Tufted duck 

Pennington Brook 

I walked down towards the brook, a passing little egret disappearing into the trees at the mouth of Pennington Brook. The brook was busy with mallards and coots, a couple of mute swans were feeding near the bridge and a couple of redhead goosanders drifted upstream.

Black-headed gulls 

The car park was heaving with mallards, Canada geese, black-headed gulls and mute swans. Some of the swans have taken to hiding behind rubbish bins then stepping out suddenly to demand slices of bread with menaces. They took some persuading that I'd even forgotten to bring out anything for myself. There have been reports that the Egyptian geese are still around but I couldn't find them today. It also occurs to me that it's months since I last saw the car park oystercatcher.

From the F.W.Horrocks Hide

The water was lower than it has been lately, most of the spit at the Horrocks Hide was exposed though little enough was taking advantage of it. Way out at the end a dozen cormorants dried their wings in the company of a few lapwings, some coots and a few herring gulls. I keep being told to look out for great egrets but never have any joy with it. Just as I was about to leave a kingfisher flew in and sat on the post just in front of the hide.

Kingfisher 

The walk through the trees down to the Tom Edmondson Hide was unusually quiet. The pools by the paths, in contrast, were busy. Pengy's Pool, seen through the trees, was busy with gadwalls, the pool across from hide busy with shovelers.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

There were a few shovelers, gadwalls and mallards on the pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide. A couple of dabchicks fished in their usual corner and a heron lurked in the reeds.

Mandarin duck (centre) and teal

I was expecting to see teal and shovelers at the Ramsdales Hide, I wasn't expecting the trio of mandarin ducks. I couldn't turn any of the teal into a garganey and I looked in vain for any waders until a snipe that had been sitting in plain view stood up and walked into the long grass.

I took the looping walk round to the Charlie Owen Hide, bumping into the first blue tits and the only chiffchaff of the visit.

Shovelers 

The pool at the hide was carpeted with shovelers, the few coots and gadwalls staying on the margins. A couple of dabchicks showed their disregard of coots by bobbing up and nearly upending them a couple of times.

Great tit

The feeding station at the Bunting Hide was gratifyingly busy with small birds.

Coal tit

Willow tit

Dunnock

Nuthatch 

Bullfinch

Pengy's Pool 

I called in at Pengy's Hide where the gadwalls outnumbered the mallards three to one.

Herring gull 

I must have been walking back through the car park about the time somebody reported seeing a bittern flying across the reeds across from the end of the Horrocks spit.

On St Helens Road the Leigh-bound traffic was nose-to-tail and stationary so I went home via Wigan. Passing through Lowton I looked twice at the large gull flying by and realised it was a great egret.