Pennington Flash

Gadwalls 

I thought it was time I had a wander round Pennington Flash. As a reward for the morning's good behaviour and my not crying after my flu jab the rain eased off and it became a fitfully sunny afternoon. The 588 to Plank Lane was sitting in the next bay ready to go when the 126 pulled in so I took that and walked into Pennington Flash from the Plank Lane car park and wandered round and down to St Helens Road.

Pennington Flash Country Park 

? Brown rollrim 

The woods were damp and quiet, the mixed tit flocks barely making a sound except when I'd turn a corner and surprise a great tit or blue tit. A quick scold later they'd be quietly back at their business.

Mallards

The paths leading into the Ramsdales Rucks were more damp than I was willing to negotiate (I wanted to keep my ankles dry) so I drifted back up to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and walked along the towpath a stretch before dropping down into the rucks¹. The mallards had the fires in the blood up, the drakes competing madly for the attentions of ducks that weren't all that bothered thank you. A pair of mute swans cruised down to the marina and a couple of tufted ducks minded their own business.

Tufted duck 

Dropping down into the rucks

I dropped down into the rucks and joined the path along the flash. The noise of workers strimming back the reeds and scrub by Ramsdales Hide almost drowned out the calls of black-headed gulls about the spit. The usual crowd of cormorants, lesser black-backs and herring gulls congregated at the end of the spit. There were also a couple of great black-backs, a few herons, a little egret and three great white egrets. Mute swans and great crested grebes cruised about and coots dived for mussels when they weren't quarrelling amongst themselves.

Cormorants, lesser black-backs and mute swan at the end of the Horrocks spit 

It was warm enough for a couple of speckled woods to flutter by. I thought the frantic fluttering in the grass and Michaelmas daisies on one of the verges were more of the same and was astonished to find they were large skippers. I've never seen them this late before. I don't know what had upset them but after a couple of minutes of rushing about they all retreated into the depths of the dead grasses.

Walking by the flash

Cetti's warblers sang in the reeds and brambles, chiffchaffs and great tits squeaked in the trees, robins and wrens sang in the undergrowth and carrion crows called almost incessantly in the background. Despite all the vocal cues I found myself spotting more leaves falling through the twigs than birds. I eventually found the calling coal tits and dunnocks and a family of long-tailed tits put me out of my misery by bouncing to and fro the willows by the path near Ramsdales Hide.

Mallards and teal

I decided to give Ramsdales Hide a miss. The pool opposite the Tom Edmondson Hide was liberally scattered with mallards and teals.

At the Tom Edmondson Hide 

The pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide hosted a pair of mute swans, a few pairs of gadwalls and a couple of shovelers. The gadwalls swam through the reeds to join what looked like a crowd of them on Pengy's Pool while a few mallards drifted in from stage left. I kept hearing dabchicks, eventually they drifted out from the drowned willows on the far side and bobbed up and down amongst the shovelers. Most of the movement about the reeds on the near bank was wrens, dunnocks and long-tailed tits fossicking about. A migrant hawker patrolled the tops of the reeds.

Mute swans 

I quickly gave up trying to see where the water rail was calling from and wandered down to Pengy's Hide where the pool was awash with gadwalls with a few shovelers and mallards at the edges and a little egret fishing from a willow tree down the end.

The feeders at the Bunting Hide were nigh on empty though the nuthatches, great tits and robins tried their best to find something. A couple of chaffinches fossicked about on the ground with a couple of moorhens. I was just about to leave when half a dozen blue tits descended on the feeders. I hung on a few minutes to see if anything else might be tagging along, nothing was and the blue tits didn't linger.

Shovelers 

The pool at the Charlie Owen Hide was a lot different to my last visit: only the crest of the island was above water. Here the shovelers outnumbered the gadwalls two to one.

Moorhen and mystery sleeping wader

A small brown object on the edge of the island caught my eye. It was a wader of some sort. I was looking at it end on and it had its face and beak firmly tucked into its back feathers. Judging by the shape and relatively short legs I came to the conclusion it was a snipe, which is a nice find here, and the hint of a tramline on its back suggested it was a first-Winter bird. I still wasn't satisfied though, it seemed a bit small. Mind you, when you factor out the long bill a snipe isn't a big bird. I kept hoping one of the other birds bustling about that end of the island might wake it up so I could confirm the ID. Instead they seemed to be actively avoiding it. A shoveler drifted by and had a bath, the splashing must surely wake the bird? No.

I'd taken to trying to find the dabchick that was making so much noise when something moved in the corner of my eye. A moorhen had barged into the wader causing it to wake up and take a few steps out into the open. Had anyone else been in the hide I would have had to apologise. I was right to wonder. There was the pear-shaped body, the double set of tramlines, the upper one more like a thick ribbon, and the halfway-long beak of a jack snipe. I hastily snatched a couple of photographs before it scuttled back and went to sleep again.

Gadwall, shoveler and (right) jack snipe
Pretty lousy record shot but I'm glad to get any one at all.

A bit giddy with the surprise of it I wandered round to the F.W.Horrocks Hide, usually my first port of call, today the last. The scrub on the spit had been strimmed back, giving a clear view of the end and the bight. There were a few lapwings with the cormorants and gulls at the end, closer by the banks were dotted with loafing mallards and coots. There was enough scrub left for a Cetti's warbler to be singing from it.

Pennington Flash 

Out on the flash the beginnings of the large gull roost was starting to assemble, small rafts of lesser black-backs and herring gulls keeping one from the other. The rafts of coots were significantly bigger, a couple had more than fifty birds in them. There were lots of black-headed gulls scattered about but just a couple of common gulls, both first-Winters. The first Canada geese of the afternoon were the crowd mugging for scraps on the car park.

I'd been luckier than expected with the weather and luckier yet with the birdwatching.

Walking down to St Helens Road 

¹ Somebody asked me: locally a ruck is a heap of waste. The rucks in the Leigh area are coal mining spoil that have scrubbed over over time. Some bits of Bickershaw Country Park (which was formerly called the Bickershaw Rucks) are still largely bare of vegetation.