Pennington Flash

Great crested grebes and lesser scaup (right)

I sniffed the morning air and decided to knock the day's planned visit to Martin Mere on the head. It wasn't the weather for walking for hours in fields and reedbeds with little prospect of shady cover. The fact it also spared me travelling on one of the less reliable stretches of the Northern rail system didn't hurt any either.

Green Lane

It seemed a shame to waste a nice day, though, so I headed over to Pennington Flash where there's plenty of scope for hiding in the trees and it's never a very long walk away from a bus stop should I choose to call it quits in the heat. Along the way I noticed that a lesser scaup had been reported near the sailing club. I tweaked the plan a little: I'd hang on a couple more stops and walk up Sandy Lane to the sailing club. If I didn't connect with the bird I'd still have had a nice, sheltered walk along the South bank of the flash.

Swallow

Blackbirds, goldfinches and greenfinches sang me on my way up Sandy Lane while house martins and swifts wheeled overhead. I turned and went down Green Lane, past the sailing club and the water lily pond. Swallows twittered overhead and the pond was lively with common blue damselflies and broad-bodied chasers.

Pennington Flash 

The flash came into view and I had a scan round. The buoys out on the water alternated between having a common tern perched on top or a lesser black-back. A couple of the common terns were juveniles still begging loudly for food off parents eager to get them flying and feeding for themselves. 

Common terns
Juvenile begging for food

…come and get it

…not the most elegant catch but a young tern's got to learn

Mute swan

Mute swans and great crested grebes cruised about. A distant raft of coots and tufted ducks were being driven clockwise round the flash by canoeists. I hoped the lesser scaup wasn't in that crowd. Out in midwater there was a raft of large gulls, nearly all adults and three to one lesser black-backs to herring gulls. I bumped into a couple who were also looking for the lesser scaup, as we were talking a kingfisher shot across the bank in front of us. I took that, and the Cetti's warbler singing in a nearby bush, as good omens. I've not had any luck with kingfishers in Greater Manchester so far this year, hopefully this means a change of fortune. I wished them luck and toddled ahead.

Common blue damselfly

It was good to get into the shade of the trees for a stretch. Robins and wrens fossicked about; blackcaps, willow warblers, blackbirds and chiffchaffs sang and the undergrowth was fizzing with damselflies and butterflies, nearly all common blue damselflies and large whites until I got to a bramble patch busy with meadow browns, peacocks and commas.

Comma

Welcome shade

Pennington Flash 

I found a seat by the waterside and had a scan round. I suspected I was going to have to do a circuit of the flash to catch up with that raft of coots and tufties. I sat and watched the emperor dragonflies, huge green and blue flying pencils, hawking round the water's edge. I quickly gave up trying to get photos of them in flight, they can't just turn on a sixpence they can also fly backwards. An oystercatcher was sitting on a pier, more mute swans and grebes cruised about, coots and black-headed gulls squabbled. A raft of Canada geese and mallards drifted out from the car park across the way and headed for midwater. 

I looked back to where the lesser black-backs were loafing and bathing. Just inshore of them was what I assumed was a tuftie but on the grounds that any bird on its own that should be in a group is worth a second look I had a second look. It looked suspiciously like a lesser scaup. It was about the same size as a tufted duck but structurally different: lower-backed, big-headed and snouty. I was getting distant views of the bird and took a while to be convinced. I hoped the couple were still watching from their vantage point, it would have been directly opposite them.

Lesser scaup

A crowd of grebes diverted my attention and I spent a couple of minutes trying and failing to find any humbugs on their backs. I looked back for the lesser scaup and it had gone. A few minutes later it bobbed up in the middle of the grebes and I was seeing it well enough to confirm it as a male lesser scaup in eclipse plumage, its back ashy grey and black.

Lesser scaup and mallards

Dunnock
Typical dunnock, half-bald and tatty moulting and still trying to attract the ladies.

Broad-bodied chaser 

I carried on with my walk. Dunnocks and whitethroats joined the songscape in the more open areas, titmice rummaged about under cover betrayed by their contact calls. The bracken was awash with common blue damselflies.

Common blue damselfly 

At first glance there was nothing on the brook as I walked by it. A couple of flashes caught my eye. I assumed they were damselflies on the water and had a scan with my bins. It was a huge spawning shoal of minnows. Every so often the water would ripple as if taken by a gust of wind as part of the shoal changed direction and they became a ball of fish rolling under the bridge. 

Minnows

I had a leisurely walk down to St Helens Road for the bus back to Leigh. It had been a very productive afternoon.

Pennington Flash