Black-tailed godwits, Leighton Moss

Monday, 25 November 2024

St Helens and Pennington Flash

Ring-necked duck, tufted duck and coot, Taylor's Park 

I decided to bob over to Taylor's Park in St Helens to see if the ring-necked duck was still about. I got the train to Warrington, the bus to St Helens then the 10a to Dunriding Road. It was a nice uneventful journey on a bright, sunny and mild day which was a considerable contrast to last week and I worried I may be overdressed. That worry receded when I walked into the biting cut blowing across the lake at Taylor's Park.

Moorhen

Coot

The mallards, moorhens, coots and mute swans hung around the banks of the lake. The tufted ducks were being a bit standoffish out in the middle but were easy enough to see well. As, indeed, was the ring-necked duck. It seems to be the same bird that was here earlier in the year. I'd had my bit of luck so I passed it on by putting a couple of other people on the bird.

Ring-necked duck (left) and tufted ducks

Ring-necked duck (left) and tufted ducks 

Taylor's Park 

I had a — very quiet! — walk round the park then debated where to move on to next seeing as it was still only lunchtime. I decided to play it safe, head back into St Helens and get the 34 to Pennington Flash. I just missed the 34 at the bus station so I got the 320 to Ashton-in-Makerfield and the 610 from there to Pennington Flash.

Pennington Flash 

It had clouded over a little and the wind was getting fresher. The walk in from St Helens Road was fairly quiet, just the rattle of magpies. It took some going to spot the great tits, robins and blackbirds silently rummaging about in the hedgerows, even the squirrels were slinking about like thieves in the night.

Mistletoe 

The brook was slightly higher than usual 

The brook was inundated, even the mute swans drifting backwards downstream were dwarfed by it. The mallards and coots had the sense to stick by the banks.

Mute swans, mallards and Canada geese 

At first sight the flash was deserted, quite unlike the car park. 

Tufted ducks 

A closer look found a couple of large rafts of coots and black-headed gulls bobbing about in the waves. The raft of large gulls over by the sailing club was virtually unidentifiable, I'd no sooner get a distant white shape into focus than it was hidden by the next swell. It was considerably easier when they flew about, roughly two herring gulls for every lesser black-back. All the tufted ducks on the flash herded together in a raft near the café. Not for the first time I missed the sausage butty van and the ice cream van.

From the F.W.Horrocks Hide

The spit in front of the Horrocks Hide was a small crescent shaped island in the mid-distance. A couple of dozen mallards carpeted the near bank, there was enough room for a cormorant, a couple of herring gulls and some coots on the far tip. Beyond that, on the water, half a dozen great crested grebes weaved their way between groups of bathing herring gulls. I'd just managed to convince myself that the darker grey back on one of the hefty herring gulls was a trick of the strong light when that strong light hit its bright yellow legs. The big, blob-ended beak should have told me it was a yellow-legged gull.

Mallards

All the small bird noises but one along the way to the Tom Edmondson Hide were caused by creaking willows and falling leaves. The exception was a chiffchaff doing a very good impersonation of a creaking willow.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

The pools at the Tom Edmondson Hide were very high, just one big continuation of Pengy's Pool. The mallards seemed to be paired up, the gadwalls were indulging in a lot of head-bobbing, whistling and nudges, the shovelers and teal cruised around on the margins in small groups. There was just the one heron sat on the usual bank, or the little of it above water.

Gadwalls 

As I walked across to Ramsdales Hide a couple of great tits and a couple of blue tits quietly worked their way along the hedgerow then flew over the path into the drowned dogwoods.

At Ramsdales Hide 

There wasn't a lot to see on the pool at Ramsdales, made harder by the sun shining right through the hide windows. A young dabchick bobbed up and down in the reeds by the hide, a heron sat on one of the few remaining islands.

Dabchick 

Coot and heron

Walking round to the Charlie Owen Hide 

The walk around to the Charlie Owen Hide would have been eerily quiet had it not been for the magpies and carrion crows. I hadn't quite realised how quiet it was until I was negotiating a particularly muddy stretch of path and a goldcrest came over and shouted at me. I looked over at the pair of swimming goosanders and a little egret paddling in the rough and wondered if many golfers were out there today. It decided me not to cut across to get the bus into Leigh from the Sports Village.

Goosanders, a first-Winter drake third-left

No islands were visible at the Charlie Owen Hide, the goosanders had to rough it with the teal, mallards and shovelers and loaf in the shallows in the corner. The dabchicks seemed to be having a productive time of hunting in the submerged reeds.

Absolutely not.

Mallards were swimming on the rough path to the Bunting Hide, I stuck to the metalled paths which were quite damp enough thank you. Nobody was getting to fill the bird feeders at the Bunting Hide without a canoe. Mallards paddled about and a few blue tits and great tits moved their way through the willows.

At the Bunting Hide 

The sun was setting as I walked past the flash and on to St Helens Road but the gull roost wasn't getting much bigger. It was only when my bus got into Leigh I started to see big flocks of lesser black-backs and herring gulls heading over there for the night.

Pennington Flash 

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