Pennington Flash

Egyptian goose

It had the makings of a very nice day. Last night I put the postponed plan on ice, literally. This morning the tendon was still pulling slightly but by lunchtime I thought I could get a walk in do long as I didn't do anything silly and avoided hill walking or running for buses. I was well past due a visit to Pennington Flash so I got the 126 to Leigh. When I arrived at Leighton Bus Station the 588 to Plank Lane was sitting in the next bay so I got that. It's been a while since I started a wander round Pennington Flash from the North, it would make a change and it would save me having to find a gap in the traffic to cross St Helens Road.

Walking in from Plank Lane 

I got off the bus at the Plank Lane car park and set off walking through the wood. The going was made soft by recent heavy rains but the mud looked worse than it was. A song thrush sang over singing blackbirds, chiffchaffs and blackcaps by the car park. Walking through the woodland there were more blackbirds, chiffchaffs and blackcaps and they were joined by robins, wrens, great tits and willow warblers. Hearing all these was one thing, seeing any of them was a definite challenge. Unlike the family parties of titmice bouncing through the birch trees. As usual the great tits families were more circumspect while the blue tits and long-tailed tits bounced about the pathside. It was pure chance I spotted the family of coal tits in the treetops.

Mute swans and Canada geese 

A meandering course through the trees got me to the Northern edge of the flash. In stark contrast to the scene in Winter the open water was empty though there were herds of mute swans feeding at the banks on either side with mallards, Canada geese and coots. There were no signs of any cygnets about, a lot of the swans were yearling birds. A great crested grebe had a nest at the end of a small spit and a few gadwalls dabbled nearby.

Ramsdales Ruck 

Ramsdales Ruck 

The woodland thinned and I was soon walking through the open grassland of Ramsdales Ruck with the songs of skylarks and reed buntings in my ears. A couple of buzzards passed low overhead and drifted over the flash. A couple of swifts hawked low over the ruck, I wasn't to see any hirundines at Pennington Flash at all today, which came as a surprise.

The Lagoon 

A couple of families of Canada geese had young goslings on the banks of The Lagoon and a couple of mute swans drifted about. The water's surface was sparking with common blue damselflies zipping about feeding on midges, mating, or both.

The Horrocks spit
Black-headed gulls, Canada geese, mute swans and a cormorant

Approaching the canal I was starting to get closer than my usual views of the bight at the end of the Horrocks spit. The nesting black-headed gulls were very busy though I couldn't see any youngsters on the nests. The reactions to any passing large gull were swift and hostile. A couple of dozen herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed in a raft off the Horrocks spit.

I've had two dry months to do this walk in so I wait until after a deluge

The path round to Ramsdales Hide was noisy with singing blackcaps, blackbirds, robins, wrens and a particularly insistent coal tit.

It was fairly quiet on Ramsdales. The usual Cetti's warbler was back and singing. A family of lapwings pottered about, the parents taking umbrage at anything getting within ten yards of the chicks, which was hard lines on the little egret shrimping at the waterside. A couple of shovelers dozed, moorhens and Canada geese pottered about. 

A young couple in the hide were mesmerised by "a black butterfly thing" fluttering about in the reeds. It took me a while to pick it up, and that only because it was holding a territory and kept coming back to the same leaf, a male banded demoiselle doing a passable imitation of some sort of butterfly. I dug out pictures of male and female banded demoiselles, they were very taken by them and will definitely be on the lookout for them in future. As, indeed, will I.

At Ramsdales Hide 

The Tom Edmondson Hide was very quiet indeed, a pair of gadwalls and a coot. Just as I was putting the camera back in the bag a couple of willow tits flitted between the brambles either side of the hide.

At the F.W.Horrocks Hide

It was a bit busier at the F.W.Horrocks Hide, even not counting the crowd scenes at the end of the spit. Mallards dozed, coots fussed about, a pair of teal slept on the banks of the bight. A little ringed plover must have been pottering about near the teal, it flew up from there and landed at the end of the spit. I'd thought I'd heard terns, there were a pair of common terns wheeling about at the end of the spit. There was an almighty commotion when a great black-back flew in, the black-headed gulls on the nesting raft rose as one and cleared it off, the great black-back affecting nonchalance as it flew off.

Egyptian goose 

There were great rafts of Canada geese cruising round the margins of the flash. At the car park the rafts were smaller, family groups of downy goslings. Also at the car park were a pair of Egyptian geese, a bit early this year. Where on earth are they the rest of the year?